


Like Night and Day

by Clorixi



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Story Series | Digimon World Series, Digimon World Series
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Fluff, I'm not tagging all the digimon, Mentions of brainwashing, Soul Bond, and they were roommates..., because of the game's plot, if you're looking for a sweeping adventure fic this is not it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2019-10-30 18:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17834231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clorixi/pseuds/Clorixi
Summary: At some point, Sayo's home had just become home, and Koh isn't really sure what that says about him or what it means for their relationship, but he's pretty sure he's okay with it.Or: I never fully got over the moment when the game asks you to harbor your rival, or the fact that they don't leave at the end of the game, and I wrote an entire story based on what domestic things I imagine went on in-between the adventure.





	1. Nothing to Do but Think

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter Trivia:
> 
> This will ideally be the only semi-required trivia I offer you all, and the only one that appears at the top. I just wanna explain the rules we’re using for this fic. Since the dusk and dawn games are loosely based on the 5th season of the anime, I’m using a mix of the in-game rules and anime rules. Remember Marcus? Yeah, in this universe every tamer has data-punching abilities, plus some others. Also, for our purposes we’re running with Dusk as being the ‘canon’ set of events influencing the plot. In other words, Sayo is the protagonist here.
> 
> Mind you, this story isn’t about the action/adventure plot that Sayo goes on, but rather how things change during Koh’s stay with Sayo. If you opened this story hoping for drawn out, detailed battles for the sake of all your brainwashed friends and saving your home you have come to the wrong place. This is ultimately a domestic fic that seeks to fill in some details we don’t see, and explore a relationship I always wanted to see explored when I was 13.

Koh dipped his feet down into the digital waves. The water was temperate and tingled a bit as it rushed around his ankles. The sand under his hands was soft, and he bunched some up in between his fingers and let it sift out absently. His face was turned up towards the simulated sky, basking in the pleasant heat from the sunlight. The beach area might have been tiny, barely a few feet across, but sitting there seemed to ground him.

After the chaos that was running from Sunshine City and taking finding refuge in their rival city, Koh felt that some extra grounding was called for. 

He was alone; Sayo, his rival and current benefactor, had left some time ago. With his digimon team still recovering in his digivice, the only sound to be heard was the gentle lapping of the waves. Koh let his thoughts wander were they would, but they kept looping back to the only problem he stood a chance of solving: the question of his Night Fang rival. 

Specifically, Koh wondered why exactly Sayo had agreed to put him up for the time being. Other than the respect they had for each other as skilled tamers, they weren’t exactly friends.

Their first conversation alone had been… tense, to say the least. It wasn’t as if they weren’t used to talking when they met in passing, but normally that was within the safe scripts of being tamers from rival teams. Now, Light Fang was under the control of some virus, and Darkmoon City seemed to be going the same way, and suddenly things like their rivalry as tamers or team-affiliations seemed petty.

Koh hadn’t been able to find anything to say. Sayo apparently had the same problem, because she fiddled with her digivice for a bit instead of looking at him. The stalemate of awkward silence probably only lasted a few moments, but it seemed to take an eternity before Sayo cleared her throat.

She offered him a tour, but it turned out Night Claw Tamer homes were exactly like the Light Fang ones, only with purple where there would normally be orange. The presence of the Digital Ocean was a pleasant surprise. Koh had thought that Night Claw would spring for a location that fit their theming more, like a simulation of the ravines near Thriller Ruins. He shared that thought with Sayo, who gave him a blank look and commented on how dangerous that would be. Koh pointed out that the Ocean wasn’t technically safe either, a point to which Sayo conceded. 

Anyway, the tour wouldn’t have been of much. Sayo’s tamer home was empty, in a word. Koh remembered what his own home looked like when he first moved in. It had a lot of charm, for being a generic normal rank tamer home, but little in the way of decorations. Over time, Koh filled it up with furniture, knick-knacks, whatever he dragged home from missions. This place looked identical to that original, unlived-in home. He’d almost think no one even lived there if it wasn’t for the navi-digimon and the big purple rug laid out on the floor in front of dual terminals. The rug had clearly been plush at one point, but foot-traffic had worn it down quite a clear path from one terminal to the next. 

It wasn’t completely sterile, though. Sayo’s bedroom (presented with little to no embarrassment on her part, but plenty on his) was overrun with pillows of every shape and size. They dominated the bed, even spilling over onto the floor. It made the whole room look awfully like a nest. It looked comfortable.

The sand grit pressed up under his fingernails not unpleasantly. He shook the grains out absently. Koh considered taking a nap, but discarded the idea immediately after. He was too awake.

The worst part was that there was nothing to do. He couldn’t train without going out (which he couldn’t do currently) or going to his farm island (which he also couldn’t do). That left Sayo’s farm island, which… also felt wrong to access without her being there, or at least her express permission. Tamers could be secretive about their training methods, and Koh wasn’t sure if Sayo was one of those types. 

…He didn’t know a lot about his rival, now that he thought about it. Koh worked his fingers into the sand, getting past the warm upper layers and resting them within the cool, wet layer. 

As a rival, Sayo was ruthless. She kept cool in battles, directing her digimon with a confidence that suggested she already knew she had won. It would read awfully like arrogance on anyone else. Maybe there was some arrogance in there, but her ability to read the field and react with ferocity validated her actions.

She was strong, but he already knew that. Koh frowned. 

He knew plenty about her as an opponent. But what she did when she wasn’t raising digimon… What kind of person she was, that she would accept a potentially compromised rival tamer into her personal home. Koh didn’t know much about Sayo at all, he realized. It never seemed important before.

The heat of the sun was turning oppressive, rather than warming. Koh stubbornly tilted his head back and squinted into it until sun spots bloomed across his vision. He wondered when she would get back.


	2. Caring For Your Harbored Fugitive

Sayo nodded absently in response to whatever the Piedmon behind the desk was saying. The digimon certainly liked to ramble, though the end result was always a request for her to go speak to the chief. It was interesting to see how many ways Piedmon could say “Go talk to Chief Julia”.

Piedmon gestured grandly, sweeping into a bow and nearly smacking its head into the desk. “So to sum, Sayo and team, meet with our grand chief before heading out!”

Finally. Sayo nodded one last time (she felt a bit like a bobble head) and stepped out of the quest building. 

Usagi stretched her gloved hands upwards, groaning in a pleased way as she did so. “Ah, he finally released us!”

Sayo started to walk towards the teleporter that would take them to the Union room, but Hana made a little noise of protest and flapped in front of her. The effort caused some pollen to waft over a pair of off-duty KnightChessmon, making them mutter complaints at the Lillymon.

“Now hang on a moment!” she said. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Sayo gave it serious thought, but didn’t come up with anything she might have been forgetting.

“...No?” she ventured.

Usagi rubbed at her nose, looking annoyed. “Shouldn’t we check up on our guest first?”

“Oh. No.”

The look she got was withering. “It’s been a day and a half since he got here. He probably would like some company that isn’t Phascomon. If nothing else we should make sure Ko— I mean, our guest hasn’t strangled him.”

Usagi had decided at some point that they shouldn’t mention Koh in public. While there wasn’t any direct order regarding Koh’s stay in Darkmoon, there did seem to be some unspoken rule about keeping him a secret. Any time he was brought up, the mood would shift to something clandestine, and before she knew it Sayo would lower her voice and start leaning conspiratorially towards her conversation partner.

Something about Night Claw and secrets, she guessed.

“Besides, most tamers go home and rest more often than once every three days, you know.” Usagi tapped her in the chest not unkindly. “Julia won’t mind us taking a little time before we report to her.”

Sayo stepped away out of the rabbit’s reach. “I know that. It’s just, I don’t want him to think we’re babying him. Koh is a grown tamer, he doesn’t need people constantly checking up on him,” Sayo deflected with all the knowledge of a pre-teen.

“He lost his whole home. He could use some human company.” Kumatora chimed in.

Ah. Sayo felt herself flush a little. In the face of simple Grizzlymon logic, her own reasoning seemed sort of immature.

She toed at the ground with the tip of her boot.

“…Let’s head to tamer home for a minute. I can check the farms.”

Usagi grinned. “That’s more like it!”

~~~

“Hey, welcome back!” a light, male voice greeted as she materialized. For a full second Sayo was thrown off, not expecting Koh to be right there as soon as she arrived.

“Uh, I’m home?” she responded without thinking.

They stared at each other for a moment. Koh coughed, sheepish.

“Sorry, it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to do that. Thought it would be nice, but I guess it’s not right for a guest to do it.”

A buzz beside her signaled the arrival of Usagi. Koh peered over her shoulder and said “Hey, Lekismon.”

The rabbit digimon chuckled and waved at him. “Hey yourself.”

As the remaining two warped in and Koh offered greetins to them as well, Usagi looked around the area, then looked a bit puzzled. 

“Where’s Firamon?” she asked.

Koh’s expression shifted to something startled. “Oh. He’s in my digivice. It’s considered rude to have non-rookies out in other people’s tamer home’s back in Light Fang. Is, uh, that not a thing in Night Claw?”

It was, actually. The rule of thumb was that if the digimon was bigger than a human child, you should recall them into your digivice so that the naturally small tamer home didn’t end up crowded.

Sayo figured that rule only applied to short visits, and told Koh as much.

He hummed in thought. “Well, if you’re okay with it. I think I’ll wait until later though, since it’s already jam-packed over here.”

He was right. Between the champion-sized digimon jostling her and Koh blocking the rest of the walkway, the entrance was starting to feel rather crowded. Sayo shifted her weight from foot to foot. She’d never felt that her tamer home was small before, but suddenly it seemed like there was no space at all. An itchy feeling starting building up in her chest.

Suddenly, Sayo jerked her head towards the terminals. “I was going to check up on my farms, if you don’t mind.” She barely waited for a response, but immediately took a step in their direction.

Koh stepped out of her path, saying “It’s your place.” If he noticed her sudden urgency, he didn’t say anything.

Sayo approached the leftmost terminal and began working through menus. Koh hovered over her should for a moment before realizing what he was doing. Suddenly he pivoted and walked towards the ladder.

“Anyway!” he called loudly, “I’m going to head up and… sunbathe!”

“Subtle.” Kumatora said.

A lot of tamers were very secretive about their farm islands, if they were successful enough to be awarded one by the Union. Sayo wasn’t one of those people, but she knew a couple tamers who would straight up assault someone if they thought their farm secrets were being plundered.

It seemed that Koh was going to err on the side of caution and give her some privacy. Hana looked between Sayo and Koh rapidly and in growing concern as he moved away. She nudged one glitter-covered shoulder into Sayo’s, hissing “Say something to him!” 

Sayo squinted at her and shrugged helplessly. Hana aggressively gestured towards the farm screen, motioning between it and Koh while moving her eyebrows up and down. It looked utterly ridiculous, but finally Sayo got the message.

“Koh,” Sayo said. He paused halfway up the ladder, turned back in an awkward way to face her.

“Yeah?”

“Sometime I’ll bring you over to a farm island.” She offered.

His eyes boggled. He leaned towards her, forgetting his precarious position and nearly falling off the ladder for his trouble.

“Seriously?”

She shook her head. “It would do us all good if your team had somewhere to continue training. It’s just practical.”

“There’s practical, then there’s letting your rival into your islands.”

Sayo just turned back to the pc. “You don’t have to go if you aren’t comfortable. I’m only offering.”

She didn’t see what he did, but something thunked on the ladder. Hana twittered a laugh.

“Say ‘yes’, blondie!” she said between giggles. “Don’t make it weird.”

Koh groaned. “Fine, yeah, I’d really like that. Thanks, Sayo.” Then he scurried up the rest of the ladder and disappeared over the ledge. 

Sayo hummed in acknowledgment as she switched out a few farm goods.

A couple moments passed with the only noise being Koh’s retreating footsteps. When they grew far away enough, Hana sighed in disappointment. 

“The whole point of coming here was to talk to him more, you know.”

Kumatora slumped to the floor with a huff, turning himself into an impression of a rug. “Sayo doesn’t chatter naturally.” 

Hana fluttered above his head, playfully picking up his heavy paws and letting them drop over and over. “Takes after you, Mr. Counts-His-Words!”

“Well,” she continued, “we can count inviting him out as a success.”

Sayo shook her head and tuned them out. Hana got interesting ideas where Sayo’s (close to non-existent) social life was involved. 

There wasn’t much to check on the farms, but Sayo felt herself relax as she worked. This was sooner than she normally checked up on them, so there was less work to do. It felt like she finished in mere moments, but when she checked her digivice it said an hour had passed. 

Sayo logged out of the terminal and stretched her arms over her head. “Alright, that’s enough. Let’s get going.”

Kumatora lugged himself up, gently dislocating Usagi and Hana from their positions lounging against him. Hana stood up, but Usagi let herself fall to the floor with a thunk, yawning.

“I was just starting to doze off,” she protested. 

“We’ve got work to do, Usagi. Let’s go.” Sayo encouraged, offering her a hand. Usagi grabbed it and Sayo hauled her up with some effort. 

Her team made their way in front of her to the teleporter. Before she stepped onto it, Sayo stopped and listened carefully. She could just make out some shuffling sounds from farther within her home. 

“I’m off!” she called, feeling slightly silly.

Silence greeted her call. She almost leapt on and left right then and there, but then a responding “Take care!” came from over the edge. 

A tiny bit of warmth flared up in her chest. Sayo smiled, just a little, and warped away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went with the pretty pack to make up Sayo's team because... Sayo wears a cute little cat-ear hat, and I thought the pretty pack suggested a little more personality than 'attack' or 'defense'. 
> 
> These first two chapters are pretty short, but I figured we don't need that much set-up. I've got the next two chapters done, and I'll roll them out slowly over the course of a month or two to give myself buffer time to finish the next bits. We're looking at around 8 chapters, as of right now.


	3. The Soup Chapter

“Hey, are you hungry? I’m going to make something.”

Phascomon laughed, spinning his chair around to face Koh. 

“Good luck with that. I’ve got a stash of digimin up here, so I’m good. Oh, actually,” Phascomon reached down under his desk, pulled out a sizable tin, and passed it to Koh, “here, since Sayo stores most of the digifood on her islands. You give that to your team.” 

“Thanks,” Koh said before padding off towards the kitchen. 

The kitchen was not one of the most impressive that Koh had ever seen. Granted, he could only compare it to his own kitchen, which was nothing impressive itself. Still, compared to his, Sayo’s kitchen was nearly minimalist. A pathetic looking mini-fridge, a microwave, and a two burner stove made up the bulk of the room. 

There was a set of cabinets and drawers. Upon exploring them, Koh found that most of food was stored in one particular cabinet to the far left. The… pantry, he supposed, didn’t have much in it.

Looking over the options did not offer much of an idea of what type of food Sayo liked. There were some staples of half-decent pantry (flour, sugar, various noodles, etc.) but nothing seemed to jump out as being meant for a specific recipe.

Koh tried to imagine what Sayo would grab when she went into this pantry. Somehow, it was hard to even picture her eating anything. He stared at a flour bag like it would give him the answers.

…At what point did this become a mission to make something Sayo would like? Koh wondered. 

He shook his head, physically changing his line of thought. Soup, he suddenly decided. Almost everyone liked soup, and even the sparsest pantry would have some options for one. It would be lacking in flavor, given that there were no soup stocks or broths to be found, but it would be something to eat at least. 

Koh dug around a few cabinets and managed to locate a small pot that fit perfectly over the tiny burner. He also found a saucepan, which he nabbed and left on the counter for now. Koh filled the pot with water and turned the flame on with a tiny click. As it began heating, Koh reopened the pantry and really considered his options. 

Noodles were definitely going in. He took a box of spaghetti noodles and set it onto the counter. The pepper shaker (nearly full) and the salt container (nearly empty) were also taken out. 

The counter was almost full already. How Sayo managed to cook anything in these conditions was a wonder.

He looked for any type of oil but came up empty. There was a little container of butter in the fridge though, and a bag of baby carrots. He grabbed both. 

Despite searching every drawer, he couldn’t find a paring knife anywhere. Koh truly despaired for Sayo’s clearly non-existent diet. He did find a decent butter knife that would have to do. Koh hacked the baby carrots into more workable chunks.

The saucepan managed to fit next to the pot on the stove, but it was a close thing. Butter plopped into the pan and began to sizzle and melt as the heat hit it. The carrots were tossed in, along with a touch of salt and, after considering the shaker, less pepper than he would have normally used.

A quick sauté later, and the carrots were dumped into the pot. Koh opened the noodle box and gently shook those out, then added more salt and pepper to the broth.

There wasn’t much to do after that but wait for the boiling water to do its work. Koh peered into the pot, watching the contents bubble away.

...This was, quite possibly, the simplest soup he had ever made. Koh was definitely going to write up a grocery list, even if he had to beg that Phascomon to order the stuff. 

Earlier he had found that Sayo did have storage bowls, a fact that Koh was very thankful for. While he was waiting, he got one of the biggest ones out and left it ready by the sink. 

He also got a bowl out for himself, and after a small debate over the utensils he grabbed a fork to eat with.

Patience was a virtue, but Koh didn’t think the soup was going to get much tastier just because he let the carrots boil an extra five minutes. The moment the noodles felt soft enough he turned the burner off and moved the pot onto the counter. 

Most of the soup went into the storage bowl and was left on top of the mini-fridge to cool. The remainder went into his own bowl.

His part of the meal completed, Koh set his digivice on the table and tapped it twice. The screen lit up, and Coronamon’s face glared at him sleepily. Behind his massive flame head, Koh could just make out Agumon and Patamon vying to see around him. 

“What.” Coronamon said flatly.

Koh held the tin of digimin up to the device and raised his eyebrow. 

“Out in a minute.” 

Sure enough, a moment later Koh felt a warmth spread between his head and his chest, and the digivice let out a near blinding flash of yellow light. The light seemed to spill out onto the ground and coalesce into three distinct bodies. 

Coronomon wasted no time in grabbing the tin and plopping onto the floor, pulling the lid off as he went. 

“There are chairs, you heathen,” Agumon said, perching on the edge of a chair as she did so. 

She received a grunt and a clawed hand offering her some of the digimin in response. Agumon huffed but accepted the peace offering. 

Silence reigned for the most part while everyone focused on satisfying their hunger. Koh spooned another portion of soup into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. He could make way better soups than this one, but since its only crime was being bland Koh counted this as a success.

Conversation rose in proportion to the amount of food eaten. Coronamon and Patamon engaged in a battle of “Who Can Tell the Worse Joke”, the winner being determined by who made Agumon groan the loudest. Koh managed to sneak some decent puns in, just to watch the lot of them cringe. 

When his spoon scrapped the bottom of the bowl, Koh got up and left it in the sink. He walked over to grab the pot and moved to place it in as well. 

“I’ll get that.” Agumon nabbed the pot from his hands and trotted it to the sink. Patamon floated above her head, ‘helping’ by giving her a sponge and pointing out where the dish soap was. 

“Thanks guys.” Koh said. He checked if the leftover soup was cool enough, then popped it into the mini-fridge. He found a rag and dried dishes as Agumon finished washing them. Everything was cleaned and put away in a matter of moments. 

“Mmm, that hit the spot. Now what?” Coronamon said from where he was still sprawled on the floor. 

Koh grinned. “Now we go work those spare calories off.” 

Coronamon started to whine, then cut himself off as a realization hit him, sitting up. “Work them off where?”

“Oh.” Koh said. He has somehow forgotten their current living situation in the span of a single meal. “Huh. I guess we’ll have to wait for Sayo to take us to her islands before we can do that.” 

A crack of leathery wings, and Patamon dropped onto his head. Small paws dangled dangerously close to his eyes. “When’s Sayo going to come back?” he asked. “It’s boring sitting around!” 

Koh reached up and pulled the little digimon off his head. “When she finishes her mission, probably.”

Patamon flailed a bit in his grip, protesting being manhandled. Koh tossed him lightly into the air. He struggled to catch himself for a second, flapping hard to maintain his balance. 

“I hope they come back soon then! Lillymon is fun to be around when she isn’t trying to poison you.” 

Koh laughed. “Yeah, I hope they come back soon too.”

~ ~ ~ 

Sayo’s feet dragged along the path to Dark Plaza. Each footstep landed with a wet squelch, which might have been the worst of her problems if her monster-hat wasn’t dripping a seemingly endless supply of cold, slimy water into her ears.

She hated Loop Swamp. Her digimon had all abandoned her, the traitors, to the dry safety of the digivice long before she even step foot in the swamp. They got to avoid the wet, damp, soggy, disgusting mud and earth and literal whirlpools that you were required to enter in order to navigate that zone. 

The more reasonable part of her brain told her that her team still had to deal with the aggressive aquatic type digimon of swamp, and therefore were as wet and miserable as she was, but she ignored it in favor of being grumpy. 

She hoped the tasty water was worth it, because she wasn’t going back there for at least a year. The reward certainly wasn’t worth it, Sayo thought uncharitably, then immediately felt a bit bad for thinking it. 

The teleporter fizzled a little bit where water droplets fell onto it, sending small wisps of steam up as it evaporated the liquid rapidly. Sayo didn’t wait to see if she could cause a malfunction just by lingering, but keyed her home code into her digivice and zipped off. 

She arrived to complete silence, but it was somewhere near 2 a.m., which meant even Phascomon had slipped off to bed as soon as she reported the quest done. 

Sayo pulled herself up the ladder into the living area of the tamer home. It was quiet save for the lapping of the Digital Ocean. She squinted in the dark towards her bedroom. 

Koh seemed to have got over his aversion to sleeping in her bed, because she could just make out a blond head nestled in the mess of pillows. He had dumped a bunch of the extras on the floor, making the bed look like a proper bed for once and not just a pit of softness. The floor, however, looked more like a nest than ever. It looked super comfy, actually…

Her stomach growled. Food first, then.

It took less than ten steps to get to the kitchen, but the distance felt like a mile. Sayo opened the fridge, figuring some carrots and a little peanut butter was a decent enough meal for now.

She reached in to grab the bag only to feel hard plastic. Her carrots were gone. In their place was a storage bowl with liquid and noodles in it. She pulled the bowl out, slightly dazed. Did she have leftovers from somewhere? Sayo tried to remember the last time she had eaten out, but came up empty. She stared at the bowl and realized there was a sticky note placed on the top.

Noodle and Carrot Soup. Dig in!

...Huh. She pulled the lid off and placed it halfway across the opening before placing the bowl in the microwave. She grabbed a fork as it heated, barely waiting for the whole three minutes she set before taking it back out. 

She took a bite. The soup was… pretty bland, actually, but it made her feel the warmest she had felt in a while. Sayo sniffled a little, the heat from the food invading her sinuses. She ate the rest automatically, jerking in surprise when her fork finally scraped the last of the soup up.

With her stomach full, Sayo felt her eyelids drifting lower and lower. Later, she wouldn’t remember cleaning up the bowl and fork, or how she made her way into her bedroom. Sayo didn’t lower herself so much as she just stopped supporting her weight, falling bodily into the mass of pillows on the floor. She was out before she blinked twice. 

~ ~ ~ 

She woke up at 7 am. This was not by choice, because Sayo would give anything to sleep for a full 24 hours straight. Unfortunately her body never seemed to get that memo, because at 7 am every day her eyes would open and refuse to shut again. To be a morning person in a team of night-owls was her eternal curse. 

Dragging herself out of her mountains of pillows was difficult, mostly because it’s hard to balance yourself on squishy, shifting fabrics. Sayo managed, eventually. Koh was missing from the bed. She should probably be a good host and look for him, but instead Sayo took advantage of the opportunity to change without having to awkwardly ask him to leave. Of course, changing her clothes didn’t fully remove the swamp feeling from her soul. She left the bedroom and made her way over to the bathroom. The door was shut, though. The soft rush of the shower could just be made out from beyond it, which explained where Koh had disappeared to.

She mourned the shower for half a second, then Sayo left him to it. She could just stop at one of the public facilities on her way to the Quest Center. Sayo turned and started to head for the entrance.

Then she stopped. Somehow, it felt weird to leave without saying anything. She walked back towards the door. She rapped on it twice, calling out “Koh? I’m going to be heading out!”

Something banged on the floor of the tub. Muffled cursing, then “Okay! Be safe!”

She nodded, unaware a little smile had appeared on her face. She turned to leave for real. 

“Good morning Sayo!” Phascomon called from his station as she passed by. The little guy didn’t even wait for her to respond before throwing his head back and shaking a near empty container of digimin into his mouth. 

Which reminded her-- 

“Thanks, Phascomon.” She said. After a moment’s pause, she turned back and clarified “For the soup.”

He shook his head. “Light Fang made that, not me,” he said around a mouthful of food. 

Oh. 

Before she could say anything, Phascomon suddenly grabbed a piece of paper off his desk. “Actually, he wanted me to order some food. I thought I’d run it by you before I spent any money though.” He passed the list to her. 

It was pretty reasonable stuff. Sayo nodded and handed it back. “If Koh needs something, just go ahead and order it.” And then, because this was Phascomon she was talking to, she added, “Unless it’s something really crazy.”

“Sure thing boss.” He twirled a pen that he acquired from seemingly nowhere. “Anything you wanna add before I sent out the request?”

Sayo started to shake her head, but hesitated. “Uh… add some soy sauce and rice noodles.”

Phascomon wrote the items down. “Right, I’ll get this stuff here by the end of today.”

~ ~ ~ 

When Koh went to open the fridge for some eggs, he found a sticky note attached to the front.

Thanks for the soup. I’ll return the favor next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Trivia:
> 
> I knew I was going to have a ‘making food’ scene, but I debated what food it would be. Then I became obsessed with making soup at home, and that was that. 
> 
> Digimin is a healing item in the game, but video games like to use food as healing items all the time, so I decided to stretch the idea of what digimin is into being a straight up meal for digital beings. 
> 
> Speaking of eating, I like to imagine the inside of the digivice provides a short of refuge for digimon that includes access to food, which is why sayo’s team didn’t make an appearance in this chapter. Everyone hates loop swamp and they’re all sulking.


	4. Training Montage!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my friend sharkbait was kind enough to draw fanart for this chapter and they absolutely nailed it, its exactly what I was pictured when I wrote it, go look at it immediately because its the perfect companion for this chapter: http://sharkbait-is-dead.tumblr.com/post/184027871657

Multiple heads pressed themselves into her hands, her side, her legs, the multitude of different textures and colors blending together and separating at random, always a surprise what would be there next. Sayo laughed, overwhelmed by a wave of affection towards her rookies.

The lot of them leaned a little too hard into her and Sayo went down with a whoop of delight. The mass of bodies tumbled over with her. Koh seemed vaguely concerned at the heap of human and digimon on the ground for just a moment. As soon as he realized this was normal for them, his grin matched hers in genuine delight. “Everyone alright down there?” he asked, bemused.

The reaction he got probably wasn’t the one he was looking for. The digimon looked up almost as one, growing silent as they finally noticed the stranger amongst their midst. Every last one of them, to a digimon, immediately went on a face journey upon realizing that the tamer in question was undoubtedly a Light Fang. The expressions varied in their levels of surprise and aggression as the rookies came to differing conclusions as to why he was there.

As funny as it would be to watch Koh get chased by a host of rookie digimon, Sayo decided to intervene before they assaulted him.

“Everyone, this is Koh. He’s a Light Fang Tamer, and he’s going to be staying with me for a while,” She paused.

Immediately, excited voices clamored for her attention, asking hundreds of questions right over one another. Frostpaw, a rather small Gabumon, managed to get right in front of her and bellow “Staying for how long?”

Sayo felt herself stiffen and she involuntarily glanced at Koh. Of course, the one distinct question was also a difficult one to answer. For his part, Koh seemed politely disinteresting in the answer, but his shoulders were held stiffly to both sides, and he seemed far too interested in the patches of grass below their feet.

She looked back to Frostpaw and said, “For as long as he needs to.”

Koh let out a little breath that was almost covered up by the rookie’s continued noise. She answered a few of their simpler questions (He eats human food of course, really now!) until Sayo threw up her hands and yelled “Just ask him yourselves if you’re so curious!”

That got the lot of them to pause, growing shy at the idea of talking to a stranger. It was moments like these that Sayo felt her exasperation turn to awful fondness. It couldn’t be helped; this group had been raised from eggs, and as a result she babied them a little. They were all very young, and had little interaction from human tamers other than herself.  
Bringing Koh to this island was a bit of selfishness on her part. The other island had champion-level digimon, and would have offered a better training experience. Bringing Koh here instead meant socializing the babies more. It would do them good to be exposed to a Light Fang tamer, since they held different affinities.

Kumatora nudged his furry head into her side, knocking Sayo out of her thoughts. She nudged him back affectionately.

“Wasn’t the point of this trip for Koh and Co. to get some training?” Hana asked. “What are we waiting for? Get them out already!”

“Your wish is my command, lady.” Koh held his digivice in front of him. With way more flair than necessary, he waved a hand over the front, calling “Upload!”

The screen lit up with a yellow-tinted light that flickered and poured out of the device.

The subtle shape of the light came together and seemed to condense into physical beings. Koh’s team had been devolved down to rookies, a fact Sayo was now grateful for since they wouldn’t intimidate her young ones as much.

Apparently, her sentiment was not shared by her team. Upon seeing Coronamon, Usagi made an odd strangled noise that was mirrored by him. The two of them stared at each other with clear discomfort. Usagi folded her legs under her, sitting down to bring herself to Coronamon’s eye-level.

Something pulled in Sayo’s chest, surprising her. Energy began welling up without her permission, and she mentally gripped at the feeling and held it off, unsure of where it had come from. She tilted her head, tracing its source to Usagi. There was a mindless intensity to the pull, like Usagi didn’t even know she was doing it. It felt like the tug-and-release motion of digression.

Sayo didn’t quite get why, but if Usagi wanted to digress she wasn’t going to stop her.

If digivolving was a burst of intense energy, digressing was like an implosion of sorts. Sayo felt as if a muscle she had been using for a while suddenly relaxed. Usagi lit up in a soft, periwinkle light that shrunk down. It hugged tight against her form before blinking away in a wash of glittering particles. Usagi was left a Lunamon once more.

She and Coronamon grinned at each other. “That’s better” she said. Usagi leaned forward and pressed her temple to Coronamon, who in turn leaned into the touch. Their eyes closed, and for a moment they seemed really peaceful. Sayo felt a bit like she was intruding on… something. Then they opened their eyes and the two walked off, leaving their tamers to blink confused at their retreating forms.

“Was that weird?” Koh asked. “That seemed weird.”

Sayo shrugged. “Little weird.”

“He’s always weird.” Agumon commented, disinterested in the going-ons. “That's how those Olympus types get around each other.”

Patamon, who was tangentially related to the Olympus Digimon being an angelic digimon himself, puffed up. “There’s nothing wrong with them being excited to see each other.” he retorted.

“Alright,” Koh plucked Patamon out of the air and patted him on the head, “let’s not argue with young, impressionable digimon around.”

Speaking of impressionable digimon, the little ones were eyeing up the new digimon with ill-disguised interest.

Koh lobbed Patamon towards the group. “Here, why don’t you all introduce yourselves? Then we can figure out how we want to go about our training.”

Patamon glided along until he landed by Agumon. “Well, alright.” he said hesitantly. “I’m Patamon, and this is Agumon.”

The rookies whispered among each other, apparently choosing a speaker to represent them. Sayo wasn’t surprised that it was Frostpaw who stepped forward and began introducing the group one by one. 

Koh whistled as a litany of names flew by. “You’ve really nicknamed all your digimon, huh? I thought it might have just been your main team.”

“I like nicknames.” Sayo replied.

He gave her a funny look, but otherwise didn’t say anything else.

Frostpaw had gotten awfully close to Patamon while they were distracted. Finally, the little guy asked in a cross voice “Okay, you smell flighty but also holy. What are you?”

Patamon tilted his head. “I’m a bird type, but digivolved I’m a holy type. That’s impressive that you could tell.”

Frostpaw puffed out his chest at the compliment. “Sayo says I’ll make a good tracker! That’s what I’m training for!”

And just like that the flood gates opened. Rookies began shouting out what their specialties were, and how they were training for them. Agumon, who had mostly been aloof from the conversation, took interest in a group of rookies who claimed to be pyro-specialists and approached them.

It didn’t take long after that for small skirmishes to break out among them. Everyone settled into their usual training groups. Sayo was pleased to see that her flyers welcomed Patamon into their circle as they practiced jumping with the assistance of their wings.

Sayo tapped Koh’s arm and gestured towards a nearby flat rock. They settled down there, leaving the digimon to it for a while as a warm-up. Koh leaned back on his arms and tilted his head back to bask in the sun.

A little puff of air left his mouth, and he turned to face Sayo. “So… as long as I need too, huh?”

She shrugged, unsure of where he was going with this. “Yeah. I mean, I can’t just kick you out.”

“Even though… We don’t know how long it will be until Sunshine City is safe again. When you said I could stay here, we didn’t really discuss… what that could look like, long-term.”

Sayo turned to face him fully. Koh looked serious, like he was ready for a battle. What about, who knew.

“Do we need to?” Sayo said.

“I just can’t believe you’re this okay with hosting someone for an indefinite amount of time.”

“You won’t be here for months, Koh. We’re going to save Sunshine City. There’s already a vaccine, we just need that access code.”

Koh suddenly tossed his arm over his eyes and fell back onto the rock, moaning. “You make it sound like such a sure thing.”

He lowered his arm, squinting at her past the sunlight. “But what if I fail?”

Sayo huffed and leaned forward, casting her shadow over his eyes. “You aren’t doing this alone. You’ve got your team, and mine.”

Their eyes locked. Koh stared at her, eyes wide. Sayo wasn’t sure what he saw, but his face relaxed a touch and his eyes returned to their normal size. She turned back to face the little ones. “We’re going to take care of this.”

Koh didn’t respond, and they sat in silence for a little. Then he laughed, short and low, and sat back up.

“Yeah.” he said. “Yeah, you’re right, probably.”

It didn’t sound like he was fully convinced, but that was fine with Sayo. He’d see it was going to be fine soon enough.

He stood up, patting down the back of his shorts. “Sorry about that. Guess all this sitting around is getting to me. I feel useless, when I could be out helping.”

“You’re not being useless, you’re avoiding getting brain-washed again.” Sayo argued. “And for what it’s worth, you’ve been helping me a lot.”

“Yeah, helping you eat up your snacks and use up your hot water.”

She reached a foot out and tapped the back side of his knee, making him yelp when it nearly buckled under the unexpected attack. “Seriously. You’ve made food for us and you’ve been cleaning up even though you don’t have too.”

Koh snorted. “Oh no, I just realized. I’m a live-in maid.”

“No!” Sayo protested. “I mean, yeah, that’s a bonus, but it’s been… nice to have someone around.”

That wasn’t quite right. Sayo frowned.

“I mean, not like I’m lonely. How could I be with these goobers always around” she gestured at large towards the crowd of digimon. “But, I sort of thought hosting someone would be annoying at worst—“

Koh snorted again. Sayo suddenly realized that was his default laugh, rather than him mocking what she was saying. She grinned a touch and continued,

“and it turned out that having another human around isn’t as bad as I thought.”

He hmm’d in response, which told her approximately nothing about what Koh thought of her statement. Then he turned around with a teasing expression.

“That’s a weird way to say you like hanging out with me.”

Sayo scowled. “Nevermind, being around humans is horrible. Go train already, that’s the whole reason I brought you here.”

He held his hands in front of him in a placating way. “Alright, I’m going.”

Then, instead of gathering up his teammates like Sayo thought he was going to, the madman raced towards her digimon, hollering “Alright, time for a real battle!” He posed in front of them like a comic book villain. “Come, young ones! Challenge me if you dare!”

Peachy-orange colored light encased his closed fist, growing and taking on a nearly pixelated shape. Sayo could feel the energy of it from where she sat. From here, it felt a lot like a sunbeam, warm and illuminating. She knew from experience that it could also feel like an explosion, searing heat and pain blooming across you before you even fully know what hit you. 

Her rookies fell back, clearly put off by the sudden presence of the infamous Light Fang aura they had only heard about previously. To their credit, they rallied together, charging him with a wordless battle cry. Koh put up a decent fight, though Sayo noted he was pulling his punches a little. He managed to fend off Piko (a demidevimon) from dive-bombing him while at the same time grabbing Kiria ( a lopmon) and gently tossing her over his shoulder. The numbers were against him though, and it was clear that unless something was done Koh would be over-run.

Koh seemed to realize this, and he surprised her again when, instead of calling for Agumon and Patamon, he looked back at her and said “Sayo! Help me!”

“You’re the one who challenged them. Deal with the mess you got yourself in, Koh!” she responded.

He threw a hand towards her, beckoning. “Sayo, please!” he cried, grinning wildly. Not a moment later, the crowd suddenly jumped at him. Their teamwork was impressive, as Kiria and Frostpaw both leapt at his legs and managed to topple Koh. He went down with a yelp.

“Sayo!” he yelled between laughs.

“Oh, fine. I can see you really need me.” Sayo took her time, stretching out her arms and legs before finally standing up. Clenching her hand into a fist, Sayo focused her energy into it. A cool, almost icy feeling overtook her palm and grew outwards. Inky blue light, so dark it was nearly black, began glowing out of her fist. “Here I come!”

She was extremely gratified to see her rookies rear back in alarm as she leapt up, higher and faster than a typical human could. The ones around Koh scattered away, giving him a chance to regain his footing. Sayo landed neatly beside him, turning so that she faced to opposite direction of him. 

“I’ll watch your back, but don’t think you can get sloppy.” She said.

Sayo could just see the glint of Koh’s answering smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

The rookies didn’t give them much of a chance to talk about a plan, but Sayo found that there wasn’t much of a need to. If a rookie managed to slip around her guard, Koh would suddenly be there in a burst of peach light, sending them reeling back with sunspots in their eyes. When Sayo turned around to launch a lancelet of inky energy, Koh would already have ducked to let her throw it over him. The two of them whirled around each other as if they had been doing it for ages, easily maneuvering so that the other was always protected from their blind spots. 

Frost crept up along their battle field as the ice from Sayo’s attacks began to cover the ground. Koh in turn caused it to melt with every heat-soaked punch he threw, rapidly creating a natural hazard of mud around the two tamers that made it difficult for the land-locked digimon to approach them without having to telegraph the attempt. 

The flyer had no such problems, and began coordinating their dives to cover the ground digimon. Sayo was really proud of them for changing their strategy on the fly. At least, she was proud when she wasn’t busy being really annoyed by it. 

“They just don’t give up, huh?” Koh said after avoiding yet another Piko dive-bomb. His face was a bit flushed, and his breathing was clearly taxed.

“Nope.” She replied. Sayo tried to hide the fact that she was also starting to feel the effects of so much activity. She didn’t think she succeeded, given Koh’s snort of laughter.  
“Take after their tamer.” He answered.

Warmth flooded across her face and into her chest. Sayo stepped back, thinking a stray attack from Koh must have accidentally brushed too close to her. She resolutely ignored that fact that his hands, and therefore that peach aura, were too far away for that to be the case.

She was so distracted that Sayo didn’t notice the blue blaster coming her way until it hit her square in the chest. 

The fight got a little hectic after that. 

~ ~ ~

They had a good view of the mock battle taking place below their rock perch. Lunamon had led them to a tower of sorts carved out of the natural rock structures. They sat down and chatted for a touch, catching up, and were now sitting in silence while they watched over their tamers. Neither of them were going to move for a while, though. Coronamon’s hand was clenched in hers, and the two felt content to stay put until called on.

With that said, Coronamon rocked forward every so often, like he was only just holding back from launching himself into the fight. Lunamon wasn’t doing much better herself: her eyes were locked on Koh as he was being half-drowned in a sea of fur and fangs. She laughed when Sayo burst into the fray, rescuing Koh from the tangle of bodies and directing him to stand back-to-back with her. They were surrounded by the young digimon in moments.

“They work really well together.” Lunamon commented in a carefully neutral tone.

Coronamon snorted, rolling his eyes. “Well, duh. They got twins for partners. They basically have to be compatible on some level.”

She flicked at his arm with her free hand. “Compatible is a big word for you.”

Coronamon squawked a protest, which she ignored. She turned back to the fight, examining the tamers. Sayo was grinning as she and Koh launched a counter-attack, synchronizing their forward push without saying anything. 

It was the sort of instinctual teamwork that you saw from tamers who had been partnered together since they were normal rank. Lunamon waved a paw down at them, saying “See, that’s what I mean! Sayo can read him, whereas she couldn’t read Dorothy or Newton when we tried to form a trio.” 

Suddenly, he realized that she was a little upset about this. Coronamon nodded solemnly to try and match the new mood. “Koh had the same problem. Dude gets along with almost everyone he meets, but every time we tried to form a partnership he would just fall apart.” He looked down at the fight with renewed interest. 

“Figures the one tamer he can synch up with isn’t on our team. What a waste.”

“Oh, how interesting!” a new, girly voice shrieked from behind them, startled the pair and nearly sending Coronamon off their perch. Lunamon, who half expected this, sighed and turned around to glare at the eavesdropper.

“Hana, you could approach us like a normal digimon instead of lurking.”

Hana flapped her hand dismissively. “Where’s the fun in that? More importantly—“ She flew over and steadied Coronamon, grabbing his shoulders to look directly into his eyes.

“Tell me more about Koh’s unique ability to work with Sayo.”

“Uh?” Coronamon replied.

“Don’t answer that. You’ll make her worse.” Kumatora bumbled up the rock face. Lunamon whined, throwing herself down to lay on her back.

“Can’t a girl have a private moment with her favorite brother?” she asked the sky.

“You’ve hogged him long enough!” Hana twittered. “This is confirmation about what I’ve been saying all along!!”

Coronamon attempted to wiggle out of her ironclad grip, which should have been easy given the leaf-and-petal nature of her entire body. He found that there was absolutely no give, and instead went limp in her hands. Hana, forced to support his whole weight, let him flop down onto the rock-face.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, sitting up.

Hana stared down at him with a wild look in her eyes. For a moment, Coronamon felt a primal fear in his gut telling him to run.

“Sayo and Koh get along well. I mean, really well.”

“Here we go,” Kumatora heaved the words out like it was barely worth the trouble to speak. Hana ignored him entirely to go on:

“And Sayo has been acting different since he came to stay with us! She’s going back to the base more often, staying there longer, talking with him,--”

“That’s how you act when you have a guest you’re responsible for.” Kumatora pointed out. Hana pouted at him. 

“Why are you such a downer about this? Sayo hasn’t had a serious relationship since Dorothy! It’s been literal years--”

(One year, Kumatora muttered to Coronamon, who tried not to laugh)

“-- since she’s been in the dating scene, and she needs to get back out there!” 

Lunamon sighed. “Getting along with someone isn’t a reason to date them. That’s why Dorothy didn’t work out.”

“They didn’t work because they mistook comradery for chemistry. Sayo and Koh have chemistry.” 

Coronamon scrunched up his face, mouthed comradery? to Kumatora. Kuma shrugged. 

“Well,” Coronamon said, “They do get along, and Koh has cheered up a lot despite the whole overtaken city thing.”

“Even I won’t deny that.” Kumatora conceded with a nod at Hana. She flapped in delight. 

“Just don’t be surprised when I’m totally right about this.” Hana said supreme confidence.

More footsteps came from the path towards the group. Agumon popped up from below the ridge, frowning at them all. “So this is where you snuck off to.” She sniffed.

A flutter of leathery wings, and Patamon arrived as well, huffing from the exertion. Hana immediately turned her attention to him. “Oh, have you flown all the way here? Excellent work, Patamon!” she cooed.

“We’ve come to collect all you slackers. We’re here to train, in case you all forgot.” Agumon said. She turned around and began walking away, fully expecting them to follow her. “Let’s get back to our tamers before the sweet children wear them out completely.”

He groaned, but Coronamon pulled himself up, offering his hand to Lunamon once he was standing. “Might as well get moving. If she comes back, she won’t ask as nicely.”

“That was nice?” Lunamon joked as she took his hand. Hana and Patamon had already taken off, Hana offering the smaller digimon minor tips on adjusting his flight as they traveled.

Coronamon cast a critical eye over Kumatora. “Hey Grizzlymon, think you can give us a lift down?”

Kumatora lifted an eyebrow. Coronamon shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Trivia:
> 
> Something I always assumed was canon in the game is Tamer Affinity. To break it down, prospective tamers all go to the same school/training center/whatever you wanna call it, and during that process they find out what their natural affinities are for digimon types. Mono-type affinities and Dual-type affinities are the most common. Tri-types are uncommon, but not unheard of. Generally, tamers would receive specialized training based on their affinities, which led to a natural pipeline from the school into the team that had your affinity.
> 
> For the record, Koh is a Tri-type (bird, holy, and dragon), and Sayo is the rare Omni-type, meaning she has natural affinity for all types. Protag benefit! Speaking of which, I mentioned Sayo having a rad jump here, but I'll explain that in a later chapter.
> 
> Dorothy being Sayo’s ex-girlfriend is inspired by the game’s bad english translation team, who didn’t bother to write unique lines for the female protagonist, resulting in your farm digimon asking Sayo if she has a girlfriend. Coincidentally, the digimon in your farm asking after your love life also inspired the second half of this fic. Digimon love getting involved in their tamers romances, its canon.


	5. The Soup Chapter 2: More Soup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little late because I struggled with it quite a bit. Hope it turned out interesting!

Sayo was contemplating her stove with the kind of intensity he had only seen her give a battlefield. Maybe that was appropriate, given that the kitchen more closely resembled a warzone than it did an area for prepping food. Food and cooking utensils were sprawled haphazardly across the counters and table.

Despite the chaos, something smelled really good. Koh glanced at the stove, where some meat was browning in a pan. It looked like pork, and his stomach rumbled a little. He wondered if he should walk away and pretend like he hadn’t seen anything, but Koh was bored so he stepped into the kitchen despite the warning signs. It definitely wasn’t just him being food-motivated. 

Sayo jumped slightly when he called to her, turning to look at him with a dismayed expression. He paused for a moment, worried that he had missed some cue that she had wanted to be alone.

“Uh. What’re you up to?” Koh asked, aiming for a light tone.

“I’m making us soup.” Sayo announced. The serious demeanor she had nearly made him laugh, but Koh bit it back. 

“Ah. Well in that case, let me help,” he said, grabbing the knife as he did and slicing some celery into neat strips. Sayo’s frown grew impossibly graver. 

“It doesn’t count if you help make it.” She said.

He paused, looking up at her in confusion. “Doesn’t count?”

“I’m returning the favor. You made me soup, so I’m making you soup.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“Maybe not,” Sayo responded, “but it’s only fair that I do.”

He hummed, pressing down into a particularly stubborn stalk. “Maybe so,” he teased, “but if we keep ‘returning the favor’, won’t we wind up in an endless loop?”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah,” Koh said, flashing a smile mid-cut. “Might as well nip that in the bud and say we’re even like this.” 

It still bothered her, but Sayo grudgingly relented and let him be. They worked in silence for a moment, Koh finishing the celery and moving on to the carrots. Sayo was so focused on keeping the pork from burning that she barely noticed when Koh asked her something. “Sorry,” she said, “can you repeat that?”

“I asked if you like soup, since we’re having it again.”

“I don’t know about liking it any more or less than other types of food. It’s just one of the few recipes I actually know.” 

She frowned down at the pork again, and added “It’s been a while since I stopped and made something from scratch, so the quality might suffer.” 

“I’m sure it can’t be worse than plain noodles and carrots. But hey, does that mean you do know how to cook?” Koh prompted.

She looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “Are you judging my diet?”

“Are you trying to deny that your pantry is pathetic?”

Sayo shrugged. “You’ve got me there. I don’t usually bother to cook meals very often. Even if I did, I never really learned to cook at home.” She tilted her head up, thoughtful. “Not to say Mom didn’t cook or anything. She did force me to learn some basic kitchen skills.”

Koh laughed. “Sounds like the opposite of my house. Mom got remarried to a French fellow. He’s the one who taught me how to cook, actually. Mom had no talent at it. But jeez, that guy had no idea of what a kid was reasonably capable of doing in the kitchen. Look, --” He reached his left hand out to her. There was a fine white scar across the side of his thumb. “Got that cutting into a chicken. Children should not be allowed to wield chef knives.” 

The scar seemed long healed, making it a little tough to see. Sayo took his hand lightly between her own without really thinking, bringing it closer to her face to examine the scar better. She didn’t notice the light dusting of red that shot across Koh’s face in response. 

“Hm.” She murmured. “Must have hurt.”

“Ah, yeah,” he stuttered as Sayo freed his hand from her grip, “thought it hurt way worse the next few days as it healed. I think the shock of getting cut took away a lot of the initial pain.”  
He gestured to the pork still sizzling in the pan. “That seems ready to me. What’re we doing with it?” 

Sayo turned the flame off, moving the pan over to an unused burner. “It’s going to go in the pot once the noodles are fully done. Mind checking that for me?” 

“You like them a little more al dente, or not?” he asked as he pulled the lid off the boiling pot and using a fork to lift out a noodle.

“It’ll cook a little longer, so it’s okay if they’re a little hard still.” she replied.

“Then they’re good.”

Nodding, Sayo proceeded to dump the vegetables and pork into the pot, giving the lot a stir as she went. When the last celery chunk went in she placed the lid back on. It would cook for a little longer, just to get the flavors incorporated.

There wasn’t much left to do but wait for the soup to be ready.

She grabbed one of the prep bowls and placed it in the sink, itchy for something to do while they waited. Koh took up her cue and grabbed utensils. 

“You wash, I’ll dry.” he offered. As they worked, Koh hummed a little tune. She didn’t know the song, but it seemed like an upbeat tempo judging from how he bobbed his head to the lyrics in his mind. 

He had a nice voice. Even after they finished cleaning up he kept humming, staring off towards the Digital Ocean. The light seemed brighter in the room, reflecting off his blond hair and the waves below. 

He noticed her staring and cut off suddenly. The lighting made it hard to tell, but it seemed as if he was blushing. “Uh, sorry. Was that bothering you?”

“Oh, no. It was nice.” she said carelessly. 

“O-oh. Uh, you think the soup is done now?”

Oh. Sayo glanced at her digivice, surprised to see how much time had passed. Hurriedly she opened the pot, but it seemed like nothing had burned. She gave it a quick stir, releasing delicious scents into the room. 

It was definitely ready. She portioned out some of the soup into their bowls. Koh took his with a thanks, sitting down across from her at the table. 

He took a bite of noodles and pork, groaning in appreciation. “It’s the little things.” he sighed out, exaggerating his hand movements. She grinned, taking her own bite. It was a sight better than the plain fare they had shared before. They ate quietly for a moment, then Koh suddenly sat up straight and asked “What’s your favorite color?”

Sayo copied his posture subconsciously, replying “Blue.” Then she frowned and leaned forward again. “Why?” 

He shrugged, spearing another piece of pork and chewing it. “Well, we’ve been living together for… what, three, four weeks now?- and I feel like we hardly know anything about each other. So, speed questions.” He grinned. “My favorite colors are red and blue.” 

She pointedly tilting her head at his obnoxiously colored attire. “ I could’ve guessed that. But I think you’re supposed to pick just one favorite.” she said. 

He snorted. “Says who?”

“The fashion police.”

“Ha! Got me there.” He waved the fork at her. “It’s your turn to ask.” 

She scrunched up her face in thought. “Fine. Uh… Favorite…” she glanced into her bowl. “Food.” 

Koh’s expression turned serious, and he leaned forward like he was telling her a secret. “Every food. All food.” 

She rolled her eyes. “At least narrow it down to a type.” 

“Fine. Guess I’d have to say the humble sandwich. Lots you can do with a sandwich. Lunch meats, cheeses, types of condiments, you could even make a dessert sandwich.”

“I’m going with peanut butter.”

“...just peanut butter?” 

“It tastes good, it has protein, and it’s easy to eat quickly.”

“Oh. Oh no, that’s why your peanut butter jar has such obvious spoon marks in it.”

Her face heated up a bit. “Well, it usually doesn’t matter when it’s just me eating it.”

He laughed. “Man, Sayo, can’t even be bothered to spread it on toast or something. Just eating peanut butter straight out of the jar like a feral beast.”

“Whatever! It’s your turn.” she said, trying to get the subject off her eating habits.

“Favorite thing to wear.”

Sayo raised one eyebrow delicately into the air and pointedly gave herself a once-over. Then she stared at his attire. Both of them shared the habit of picking one favorite outfit and wearing it forever with only small variations, it seemed. “Is this a trick question?”

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Ah, let’s skip that one.”

The questions pinged back and forth for a while after that, slowly growing more and more ridiculous in nature until they gave up, laughing too hard to continue. Conversation turned to a more natural flow then, them bringing up whatever came to mind. Gradually, Sayo felt her stamina for conversation wear out. Somehow, she didn’t seem to mind as much. 

Koh seemed happy to take over the bulk of the talking, and for her part Sayo was happy to listen for a little. He grew more animated as he talked, arms going every which way to help emphasize the points he was making. Watching him with a smile, that warm feeling took over her chest, spreading like wild fire through her whole body until Sayo felt as if she had been drenched in sunshine. And between one gesture and another, she knew.

Oh. Sayo thought to herself. I like him.

She forked another mouthful of noodles, absently chewing on them as she turned that thought over in her mind. The suddenness of the realization startled her, but the more she examined that warmth the less surprising it felt. Accepting the reality of liking Koh was easy enough. Sayo was not the type of person to doubt herself, and she wasn’t about to start now.

Doubting other people, however, was fair game. Whatever her feelings were, she had no idea if Koh even considered her in a romantic light. Timing was another factor to consider. It didn’t seem prudent to pursue the beginning of a relationship when so much was going on.

(And maybe she could hear echoes in her ears of “I’m sorry” and “just as friends”, and maybe she could see the hurt that crossed Dorothy’s expression before it was smoothed away. Maybe they managed to recover and their friendship is still one that Sayo cherishes.

But now she knows the hurt she can cause, however inadvertently, if she jumps straight into acting on her feelings. No, she had learned from her past missteps. This time she wasn’t going to rush into anything.)

“Sayo?”

She pulled herself out of her thoughts, grinning at him. “Sorry, I’m listening. I got distracted by something.”

Koh tilted his head. “Anything you want to share with the class?”

“Mm. Maybe some other time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Trivia:  
> Koh never picking one favorite thing but instead naming multiple favorites is just… such a dumb blond thing and felt so true to him that I couldn’t change it. 
> 
> Bonus Trivia! The nicknames for Sayo’s main digimon team are all references of one kind or another. Usagi, other than being a clear riff on the whole moon rabbit thing, is meant to invoke Sailor Moon; Hana is a reference to the Hanahaki Disease trope, due to the Palmon line trait of being Very Good at poisoning things; Kumatora is named after the character in Mother 3, though they share little in terms of personality. Also, choosing to give them all Japanese names was… one part my anime background, one part the idea that all the characters are Japanese by default.


	6. Patches

The transporter whirred to life in a burst of light blue energy. She managed to stay upright as she stepped out of the portal, hand pressed firmly into her side. She barely made it the couple of steps away before Sayo fell onto her knees, thankfully thudding into the rug instead of the hardwood floors. Kumatora followed her down, offering his side for her to lean into. She pressed against him with a shudder, hunching into herself. “Just stay put.” he said. “They’ll grab the first aid kit.”

Sure enough, Hana and Usagi had already raced towards the bathroom, gunning for the kit’s last known location. They were so intent on their task that they didn’t notice Koh running past them, first aid kit clenched in his hands.

Koh skipped the ladder in favor of jumping directly down to the floor level. He landed hard, but didn’t even flinch. He was down beside Sayo in an instance, kit open and bandages pouring out of the container. 

“Koh?” She had planned to say more, but that’s all Sayo got out between heavy breaths.

He answered her unasked question anyway. “Phascomon told me you were hurt. Come on, I need you to uncurl so I can get to it.”

It took effort, but Sayo managed to get out of the ball she had tucked herself into. Koh grabbed the pair of emergency scissors out of the kit. 

He grabbed her sleeve and waited, looking for her to give permission before he cut it out of the way. She appreciated the gesture, though there wouldn’t have been any saving this shirt anyway. She nodded, and Koh had the sleeves cut in moments. 

He peeled the fabric away as carefully as he could, but fibers had gotten stuck in the edges of the cuts in her skin. Eventually Koh had to tug the slivers out of her arm. Somehow, it hurt more than getting the wounds in the first place.

Koh had the disinfectant out, and Sayo grit her teeth in preparation. The liquid stung wildly where it hit her cuts, and she hissed out a breath.

“Sorry.” Koh muttered, all the while patting at her arms with a clean cloth that quickly became stained with dirt and blood. He looked them over once they were mostly clean, announcing, “Well, they’re mostly superficial. Stick your legs out, come on.” 

He was methodical, working quietly and gently on cleaning her wounds and bandaging them. He made sure to check in with her occasionally, making sure her pain level wasn’t rising above a tolerable level. 

At some point during the process, Hana and Usagi finally realized what was going on and had returned. The two ultimates were quite literally hovering over them as Koh worked. Finally he tied the last knot off and sat back with a sigh. “I think that’s as good as it gets. Nothing more to do but give those time to heal.” 

He eyed her stomach, which she was still curled over slightly. “Any cuts there?” He asked gently. 

She shook her head. Kumatora piped up, his deep voice rumbling against her pleasantly: “Just some bruising. Nothing broken.”

Koh hummed and dug through the kit. Eventually he came up with a jar of ointment that was meant to help ease muscle pains and bruises. He held it up to her and asked “You think you can get this on yourself, or do you want me to do it?”

She held her hand out wordlessly for the jar, which he placed into her palm. She shuffled herself upwards and twisted the lid off. Sayo lifted her shirt up enough to get at her bruises. Koh hissed in sympathy seeing the darkly mottled skin. “Oof. Probably hurts to breath like that, huh?”

Sayo nodded as she placed two fingers into the jar. The ointment had a peppery scent to it that wasn’t all unpleasant. She gingerly rubbed the stuff onto her stomach, taking care to avoid pressing too hard. 

Koh wiped some sweat from his forehead. “What got you anyway? Phascomon didn’t mention.”

Sayo curled closer into Kumatora’s side, making herself comfortable. Hana elected to answer for her.

“Mercurimon. Our mission had nothing to do with him, but he was just there, doing whatever Merchants of Death do. I guess he was sore over our last fight because he challenged us almost on sight.”

Usagi hissed, “We beat him up again, but as he was running away the coward took a swipe at Sayo. Caught all of us off guard.” 

Koh held up the bottle of disinfectant. “Any of you need first aid?”

There was a collective shaking of heads.

“Sayo took care of us before she would leave the area.” Hana explained. “Which is super dumb since we’re, like, ultimate digimon and can take a couple scrapes and she’s just a human girl.”

It felt like she had finally caught her breath again. “Only takes a couple of programs to heal you.” Sayo ground out around a particular burst of pain from her abdomen. “Humans take more time and effort. Didn’t want to stick around any longer than needed.”

Koh gave her a Look. “And you didn’t stop at a medical center because..?” 

She gave him a Look right back, unrepentant. “They’re busier than normal these days. As long as I didn’t need stitches I could just patch myself up at home.”

He didn’t look happy with that answer, but he didn’t say anything back, just frowned more.

It didn’t seem like any more ointment could be placed on her skin, so Sayo twisted the lid back on and handed the jar to Koh. He placed it back into the kit. While waiting for her to finish, he had dug out two small pills from the container, which he offered to her. 

“Pain reliever.” he explained. Then he furrowed his brow, adding “Oh. I should have grabbed some water. Hang on--” 

He started to get up, but Hana gestured for him to stay put. “I’ll get it,” she said, already making her way towards the kitchen. 

There was a distant clattering of cabinets, running water, then Hana was back almost as fast as she had left. She landed alongside Sayo and folded her legs under her to sit with them on the floor. 

Hana offered her a small glass of water, which Sayo took with a thanks. She swallowed the pills one by one, draining the whole glass when she was done. 

“Right, best thing we can do now is sleep some of this off.” Koh stood up and offered his hand to Sayo. She stared at it for a moment, wanting to protest, but practicality won out. She was tired, anyway. Sayo grabbed his hand and let Koh pull her up. Her legs weren’t quite ready for it, but Kumatora was still there for her to lean against. Koh gripped her elbow as well, helping stabilize her.

They both stared at the ladder, debating how to best manage getting her up to the next level, when Usagi scoffed and stepped forward. 

“Okay, I can carry you up the ladder on my back, or I can princess carry you and fly you to the bed. Take your pick.” 

Sayo sniffed at her with as much wounded pride as she could muster. “Princess carry.”

Usagi opened her arms and Koh helped her hobble into them. She lifted Sayo up with little problem. Usagi was naturally colder than most, and her chest-plate felt wonderful against her forehead. A sensation of being weightless came over Sayo as the moon-rabbit lifted into the air.

She felt herself drifting out before they even hit the bed. Usagi set her down gently in a pile of pillows. Gravity pulled down on her eagerly as her arms pulled away, Sayo’s body feeling heavier with each passing second. She sank into the comforting embrace of her bed with a sigh, the soreness of her muscles muted from the pain pills. 

Dark blue light burst behind her eyelids. Through the haze, she felt bodies settle around her. Pollen fell across her face, making Sayo crinkle her nose. Hana murmured an apology, brushing the mess off of her with vine-like fingers before settling on the mass of pillows near her head. Kumatora plucked her arm up with care, laying underneath it. His baseball cap was a nice texture under her fingertips. The empty space at her remaining open side was invaded by Usagi, her naturally lower temperature doing a lot to counteract the warm fur of a Bearmon.

Surrounded on all sides, Sayo felt her last resistance to sleep fade away. 

~ ~ ~ 

Koh approached the pile of tamer and digimon cautiously. The group all seemed to be asleep, and he didn’t want to accidentally wake Sayo up. She barely seemed to rest on the average day, and he had a strong suspicion that she was the type to resist resting when she was injured. 

He had tried to lay down on the couch in the den area to sleep. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of dread that took over him when Phascomon reported that she had been hurt, though. Instead of turning for hours, it made more sense to just get up and confirm with his eyes that Sayo was alright. Right now, Sayo looked well-protected, surrounded by her team as she was. Being covered head to toe in bandages only made her look tougher, rather than hurt or fragile.

Koh sat on the edge of the bed, scanning Sayo’s face for any sign of discomfort or wakefulness. She stirred slightly as the bed shifted, but settled back down. Quietly, Koh settled into a vigil of sorts, feeling his own anxiety abating as he watched over her. 

Now that he wasn’t as worried about her safety, the ball of frustration that had been quietly sitting in his gut spread out. Sayo only had to confront Kowloon Co. because of his own uselessness. Sayo had to work to save his team, and he couldn’t do anything to support her when she was out in the field. 

(“You’ve been helping me a lot,” she had said, a soft smile gracing her features. What reason did she have to lie about that?)

Koh sighed, letting some of his frustration slip away with the action. If only there was something more that he could do, other than being there for her after the action had happened. Of course, that was next to impossible so long as he was at risk of the brainwashing virus. 

He wasn’t about to solve anything tonight. Also, it was starting to feel somewhat creepy just watching her sleep. Koh got up off the bed, pausing to stretch his arms over his head. 

As he did, he made eye contact with a very awake Lunamon. Koh froze, arms suspended in the air.

The rabbit lifted an eyebrow, looking awfully amused. He floundered, starting to speak before remembering why he was trying to be quiet, resulting in Koh flapping his mouth open and shut uselessly. Lunamon stifled a laugh.

She gestured with a clawed hand for him to come closer.   
“If you’re so worried, you might as well join us too.” She whispered.  
“Oh, no, no, I was just making sure… just wanted to see that the medicine hadn’t worn off yet.”

He was met with bemused silence. Based on how hot his face felt, Koh figured he probably looked like a tomato. 

Lunamon eventually took pity on him, saying “We’re all worried about Sayo. Rather than letting our worries keep us up, we stay close to each other on this mess Sayo claims is a proper bed.” Her ears flapped up and down, stirring up the air. “No one is gonna think it’s weird for you to join us. Here, bring Coronamon and the others out if you’re so worried. You can just say I wanted to see him.” 

She paused, then added, “That’s actually true.”

He hesitates despite the permission, thumbing over his digivice. “You sure I’m not intruding?”

Lunamon grew interestingly still. A thoughtful expression crossed the moon rabbit’s face, and she responded “I think you, of all people, would be welcome to join us.” 

Koh decidedly did not think about what that could mean. Instead, he sent a pulse of energy into the digivice, calling his team out. They arrived in a sleepy heap, Patamon not even waking up through the process. 

Coronamon started to open his mouth, but before Koh could warn him to stay quiet Sayo stirred with a sigh. They all froze as she shifted, a frown starting to form on her face. 

The rush of peach particles that heralded the digimon’s realization falling over her face. Her face was highlighted in soft pink light. Sayo seemed to identify his energy and relaxed, smiling slightly as she drifted deeper into sleep. 

If he wasn’t red before, Koh definitely was now. He didn’t make eye contact with his digimon but pointed towards the bed in a vague way, muttering “Uh, its… this is a slumber party I guess. Find a spot.” 

Agumon puffed out a breath that could have been a laugh, picking up Patamon in her claws and settling him to lay near Palmon at Sayo’s head. She opted to move below Bearmon, laying so their feet were facing each other. 

Coronamon wasted no time pushing into Lunamon’s space. The digimon made an annoyed sound but moved closer to Sayo anyway. 

As big as Sayo’s bed is, six digimon and two humans was definitely pushing its capacity. The only logical spot left is next to Coronamon, and Koh settles himself down gingerly. He then spends the next five minutes trying very hard not to think too much about what he’s doing because yes, he has slept in Sayo’s bed before but not when she was also in it and okay he needs to stop that train of thought right now. 

It did not help when Sayo, jostled despite his best efforts, stretched out a leg until it pressed slightly against his own. He could have easily rolled over and away from her, but it would be a shame if she woke up because Koh moved around too much. And anyway, the point of contact felt warm and not entirely unpleasant. 

Koh finally felt himself relax a little. Sooner than he would have thought, sleep overcame him, and he drifted off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Trivia: 
> 
> In the Cyber Sleuth games, Lunamon and Crescentmon (but not Lekismon?) are depicted as floating instead of walking. I always thought it was cooler to call it gravity adjustment rather than flight. Since Sayo is her bonded partner, Usagi can extend that ability to her. This is part of the reason Sayo is Very Good at dodging incoming attacks. Too bad it didn’t help much here.
> 
> Can we talk about how hard it is to figure out what name to use when referring to certain digimon? Like Bearmon, who might also be Kumamon, but also there is already a Kumamon thanks to Digimon frontier, so should I use the name that the game uses or default to the Japanese name or aaaaahhhhhhh!! Don’t even get me started on deciding which spelling to use for Mercurimon.


	7. Old Friends, New Discoveries

Despite her best efforts to keep them hidden, Chief Julia found out about her injuries and placed Sayo on a five day leave. Phascomon made himself oddly scarce shortly after the order was sent to her digivice, which answered the question of who snitched. She briefly considered pretending like she never saw the message, but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. More likely than not, the front-gate guards had been told not to let her out. 

Medical leave didn’t seem as irritating this time around, though. She could only attribute that to Koh, who seemed to have made it his mission to keep her distracted for the duration of her confinement. His efforts were hindered by the fact that she woke up earlier than him by a few hours on the average day. Watching Koh struggle to pull himself out of bed was somehow very flattering, and flustered her so much that Sayo always agreed to whatever he had planned for that day.

Mostly they had went off to her farm island to “train”, which Koh always devised in such a way that Sayo herself did very little moving at all, instead relegating her to watching over the rest of them as the digimon ran drills.

Sayo had intended for today to go rather the same as the last few days: Wake up, shower, wait patiently for Koh to come tumbling out of the bed, make breakfast, then do whatever odd activity Koh had planned for that day. Instead, halfway into coaxing a sleep-rumpled Koh into making them omurice, Phascomon called down to let her know that they had received several entry requests. Seeing as the last time this had happened, a terrible situation had occurred, Sayo had granted them access without checking what they wanted first. 

That was a mistake. 

Tamers poured through her teleporter, calling greeting and bumping shoulders and generally causing a huge ruckus. It immediately became clear that there was not an emergency and that everyone was there to… hang out.

Not that she was unhappy to see her friends, of course, but as a rule only Dorothy and Newton would visit her at home. The presence of the higher ranked tamers like the Kakumi/Sukikiyo duo and Raigo threw her off.

Her tiny tamer home went from cozy to claustrophobic in mere seconds. Sayo floundered for a solution. The last time this many people gathered in her home had been The Meeting, and that had begun and ended in the course of several minutes, never allowing for the cramped conditions to truly become a problem. She also hadn’t needed to worry about entertaining them before.

Koh noticed her struggle and bit his lip in thought. He pulled Sayo aside, taking advantage of the arrival of Spike to quietly suggest they move the group over to the islands, were things would feel much less crowded.

She took his suggestion with obvious relief and soon enough the group was spread out across her farm island. Quietly, she wondered if it was sad that her home was smaller than her training area.

No one bothered to explain why exactly they had decided to invade her home. In the end, Sayo decided it was somewhat understandable under the blanket reasoning of “Everyone I know is nosy and wants to look at the Light Fang tamer”.

With no actual plans in place, the situation devolved into an unofficial tournament pretty much immediately. Such was the way with tamers at loose ends. 

It was determined that Koh was the only unbiased party there, and he was therefore named exclusive referee for battles between Night Claw tamers. Currently, he was moderating a battle between Dorothy’s Penguinmon and Newton’s Kokuwamon. He called out far more encouragements to tamers and digimon alike than a referee really should, but otherwise he proved to offer fair judgements. 

The other tamers were gathered in loose groups around the rim of the arena zone. Sukikiyo and Kakumi were (unsurprisingly) sitting together. The tamer duo alternated between offering Newton helpful advice and straight-up mocking him as Dorothy overwhelmed him with flurries of attacks. 

Ponch and Gutts were rowdily crowing over the battle, switching their alliances until they finally decided to champion Dorothy, as she was clearly going to win. They had attempted to sneak off after their own fight, but they were kept in place by the wrath of Barone. When the two had attempted to wander off into her island, Barone had pierced them with a glare and a fierce “Leaving me behind again?” which effectively shut down whatever mischief they’d been planning.

Sayo reminded herself to send a thank-you to Barone later. Those two were an absolute terror without her around to temper them somewhat.

Newton swiped his hand forward through the air and attempted to send out a shower of sparks to distract Penguinmon, but the lime green energy seemed wispy and ineffective. The bird shrugged them off and followed Dorothy’s directions to land a fierce peck attack on Kokuwamon. That was the end of it, as Kokuwamon fell down under the assault and stayed down.

“And that’s match!” Koh called. “Winner: Dorothy!”

A cheer went up, celebrating Dorothy’s victory. Usagi and Hana made their way over to the losers, seeing if Kokuwamon needed medical attention or if they were just bruised. It seemed that they were fine, merely exhausted, because they got up shortly after. Newton fussed around them, offering his shoulder to support his partner off the field.

At some point Sukikiyo had maneuvered so that his head was laying in Kakumi’s lap; this was only barely being tolerated by the girl. As soon as Dorothy stopped showboating and stepped out of the arena, Kakumi stood up, dumping Sukikiyo on the floor in the process. She pointed at Koh. “You’re next, Light Fang.”

To his credit, Koh didn’t look afraid of getting challenged by a Bronze rank, merely apprehensive. “Sure,” he agreed. As he walked towards the make-shift arena, Koh held out his digivice. His team eagerly ran ahead of him, surrounded in peach light that grew outwards rapidly, leaving champion digimon in its wake.

“Knock ‘em dead, sweetheart!” Sukikiyo called, propping himself up on one hand and laying in a calculatedly dashing pose on the dirt. Kakumi rolled her eyes, muttering “Stupid…” under her breath.

Despite the harsh words, she looked a little pleased.

“Who’s judging?” Kakumi asked as she stepped into the battleground. There was some debate among the tamers before Raigo cleared his throat.

“I’m highest rank, so I’ll judge.”

Both tamers nodded in assent, then turned to their teams to begin discussing plans of attack. There was always a little prep time before a regulated tamer battle, and there was no reason to not follow that rule now.

Sayo rarely had a chance to see Koh in full strategy mode. She was usually on the other side of the arena, running through plans to take him out while he did the same for her. Koh was a naturally vibrant person, but on the battle-field he was brilliant. His natural charisma made him a good leader, and it was clear his team had nothing but total faith in him.

She had stood across from him and traded blows with him countless times, but Sayo was always somewhat amazed by Koh’s sheer force of presence. Her eyes were always drawn to him in their fights, until the two of them forget to command their digimon and end up fighting one another until something gives.

Sayo sighed, dropping her head onto her chest. It was kind of embarrassing to realize just how long she had liked Koh.

Newton dropped next to Sayo with a heavy groan, drawing her attention away from Koh with a jolt. Kokuwamon sparked desolately behind him. Sayo offered them both a nod, patting Newton on the shoulder.

“Penguinmon is immune to electricity.” he lamented.

Sayo shook her head. “Nah, you didn’t notice when Kokuwamon’s sparks were starting to run out of… uh, juice.” She eyed the digimon’s taser-like body. “If you’ll excuse the phrasing.”

Kokuwamon shrugged, unoffended.

“You can’t rely on one move during a fight.” Sayo finished.

Another body dropped down on Sayo’s other side. Dorothy grinned at her.

“Newton was outclassed from the start.” She bragged. Penguinmon ruffled its feathers, preening even more than the vain thing usually did.

“Whatever!” he said. “More like you’re too vicious for a casual battle between friends.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Dorothy sniffed. She eyed Koh as he took his position across from Kakumi. A delicate, blue eyebrow lifted. “You gonna let this happen, Sayo?”

Sayo blinked. “Let what happen?”

“Your Light Fang get trounced by Kakumi.”

“Oh. Koh’ll be fine.” She paused, then frowned. “Also he isn’t mine.”

“Late protest on that, Sayo.” Newton said with a laugh.

Sayo’s face turned light pink, and she shoved at his shoulder. “Shut up!”

“How have things been?” Dorothy cut in before they could start bickering. “With Koh being here.” she clarified.

Sayo startled at the unexpected question and answered honestly, “They’re great. Good, I mean. It’s been fine.” Then, to cover up how flustered she was, she added, “Uh, why? You notice something?”

“No,” Dorothy said thoughtfully. “You do seem… good.”

“…Did I seem bad before?”

“No!” Newton interjected, squinting meaningfully at Dorothy. “Just, you’re less… intense? Than we expected you would be? You don’t seem like you’re a second away from swooping off to wipe out some enemy. And you’re not pulling your hair out with boredom from being forced to rest.”

“Oh.” Sayo said, entirely uncertain of what else to say to that. 

Dorothy rolled her eyes. “We were a little worried, is all. Normally you won’t let yourself heal fully before you’re running off on the next quest. When you didn’t show your face for a solid three days, we thought you finally did yourself in.”

“I’m not that bad.” Sayo grumbled.

“You are.” Dorothy and Newton said, nearly in sync.

She shrugged, but the conversation had given her pause. Admittedly, she had assumed that this sudden visit had been her friends’ way of making sure Koh was behaving himself, or not stealing Night Claw secrets, or… something. Suddenly, she realized that this whole thing was as much about checking up on him as it was checking up on her.

It was almost nice, in a really obtrusive and nosy way. She didn’t realize so many people were worried about her well-being.

“I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised,” Dorothy said, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Not with that Light Fang looking after you.”

Sayo squinted at her. “I don’t like the emphasis you put on that title. And he isn’t looking after me, he’s…”

Cleaning and bandaging her wounds, making sure she changed the bandages regularly, cooking for her, keeping her from getting bored, making sure she slept…

“…looking after me,” she finished lamely.

Dorothy hummed innocently. Newton didn’t even try to hide his amusement, snorting in glee.

“Our reputation is going to be ruined if this gets out!” he said between bursts of laughter. “Almost of all your tamer battles with Koh are hyped up with slogans about your legendary rivalry for top rookie. Now they’re all gonna be stuff like ‘Moon Goddess Sayo versus Sun God Koh: Heaven’s Marriage Torn’, or something equally cringey.” 

Sayo frowned at him. “When have I ever been called a moon goddess?” 

“Ah, rumor has it that you’ve already gotten Usagi to her mega form and you’re just keeping it secret until the next tournament. Of course, Koh has also reached mega and will debut it alongside you. You really should check the tournament forums sometime, they come up with some really interesting gossip.” Dorothy told her. 

“People are still thinking about tournaments while there’s a crisis going on?” 

She shrugged. “Gives them something to do other than panic. Besides, Koh’s disappearance led to some really interesting speculation.” Dorothy punctuated the sentence with a wink, making Sayo groan. 

“Do I really want to know?” she asked.

“Doesn’t matter if you want to, I’m telling you anyway,” Dorothy said. “Half the theories are that you just up and killed him, which is hilarious, and the other half are that you eloped. Which--” she turned to look at Koh, amusement practically dripping off of her. “I suppose is a little true.”

Sayo pushed her. “I took in a refugee and everyone is bullying me for it.” she said to Newton, who grinned unrepentantly. 

“It’s not like you’re denying having feelings for the guy.” he pointed out. 

“We bully because we love you Sayo,” Dorothy said, throwing her arms around her shoulders. She faked a sniff, puffing out her bottom lip. “You forgot about me so soon! How could I not tease you a little, I’m jealous.” 

“You broke up like a year ago. Almost two years ago, really.” Newton reminded her.

She paused. “Oh, right.” She leaned back a little, but kept an arm around Sayo. Dorothy smiled at her, adding softly, “I really am just teasing you. I’m glad to see you look so happy.” 

A tendril of anxiety that Sayo didn’t even realize was there uncurled from around her chest. Even if she never acted on her feelings, it was nice to know that her friends would support her having a relationship with Koh. 

Newton whistled, cutting through that train of thought. “Oh, that’s a tough spot.”

Sayo turned her attention to the battle. Koh’s team was pinned down, with Koh himself barely fending off attacks from Kakumi. The situation seemed pretty one-sided, but Sayo wasn’t worried yet. Koh had gotten out of worse jams in their own fights.

“End his whole career, Kakumi!” Sukikiyo jeered from yet another elaborate position on the floor. 

Dorothy jostled her, saying playfully, “Aw, if only he had a personal cheering squad like Kakumi. Maybe Koh would do better if he did.”

She glared at her half-heartedly.

“No, really!” Dorothy said, warming up to the idea, “Come on, let’s all cheer for him! We can’t let Sukikiyo get away with being the most extra person here.”

Sayo turned to Newton for support, but he shrugged with a lazy grin. “Yeah, let’s show your Light Fang some support in his trying time.” 

“Oh, god,” Sayo said, freeing herself from Dorothy’s hold. “Fine. Let’s make fools of ourselves.”

~ ~ ~ 

Kakumi certainly was not going easy on them, even if they were lower ranked tamers. Koh directed Firamon out of the way of yet another wave of attacks from Flybeemon and BlackGarurumon. It seemed that Kakumi was determined not to let him take the advantage on elemental types, and kept the fire lion pinned down under attacks.

A constant stream of dialogue was coming from the sidelines, as Sukikiyo went absolutely mental cheering for Kakumi. Koh had taken the cue from Kakumi and ignored him, but the man was certainly making that hard to do.

Koh flicked his eyes over at him briefly. “So… he’s your partner?”

He had meant it as a completely innocuous question, but it was the wrong thing to say. Kakumi turned as red as her Veggiemon. She spluttered a little, then glared at him, eyes narrowed. “Shut up! Worry about your own partner!”

“My… I don’t have a partner?” Koh responded, completely thrown. Evidently he had stepped on a verbal landmine.

A bright orange head tilted towards Sayo. She was distracted by whatever conversation she was having with Dorothy, and didn’t notice the attention.

“Not your tamer partner, your girlfriend.”

It was Koh’s turn to turn red. He’d been doing that a lot lately, it seemed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Sayo and I get along, sure, and we respect each other, yes, but we aren’t dating—whoa!”

He leapt backwards as vines exploded out of the ground where he had been standing. The Veggiemon cackled, not at all put out that the sneak attack hadn’t worked. 

The bronze tamer sighed, but her annoyance seemed fake, like she was trying to seem put out. “Please don’t insult us both by trying to lie about it. I know what people look like when they like someone.”

Her gaze shot over to Sukikiyo for a split second. Despite the brevity of the glance, he noticed and waved coyly, making her scowl again.

“Though, I would’ve hoped our star tamer did better than some normal-rank Light Fang punk.”

He ignored the implications of what she was saying, only responding to the taunt about his rank. “You do realize this ‘punk’ is considered Sayo’s equal and rival, right?”

“Oh?” Kakumi replied. “Then let’s test that.”

Koh swore as Flybeemon zoomed towards him, nearly colliding with him before Angemon intercepted her with a blast of holy energy. Flybeemon slammed into the dirt some distance away, landing hard. She shook her head, eyes rolling. Kakumi swore and green energy gathered around her legs, propelling her forward in the shape of thorny vines. She took up a defensive position in front of the insect digimon, giving her time to recover.

This also put Kakumi in position to launch her energy vines at Koh. Geogreymon, locked into a fight with BlackGarurumon, noticed his predicament but was unable to break away from her opponent. She roared in fury, peach fire dripping from her open maw. Koh’s fists burst into flames accordingly as the shared power rose between them. It was the edge he needed, as Koh could now grab at the vines that assaulted him and singe them. Kakumi cried out, immediately pulling them back. They lingered just out of his reach, feinting towards him occasionally and preventing him from moving.

Somewhere to his right, Angemon let out a cry of pain. Koh grit his teeth, mind working in overtime to find a new plan.

“Come on, Koh! I’ve seen you fight way better than this! Kakumi’s got nothing on you!”

That voice was so unexpected, Koh couldn’t help but look where it had come from. Sayo was smiling at him, fist in the air as she cheered Koh on. There had never been a situation before where she could cheer for him. Somehow, it was the most encouraging thing he had ever heard.

The tamers sitting next to her where yelling something as well, but it’s like he was tuned in to Sayo only. It’s like her presence had a gravitational force to it, dragging him in.

(His girlfriend.) 

Koh turned completely, totally red.

And then Flybeemon collided with his head, and everything went black.

~ ~ ~ 

Kakumi was somewhat apologetic about the whole thing, only saying “Well, he shouldn’t get distracted so easily!” after some needling from Sukikiyo. Flybeemon, on the other hand, was near inconsolable, convinced that she had killed the Light Fang tamer. It took a while to calm her down.

Koh getting knocked out effectively brought an end to the get together. Raigo and Spike worked together to carry Koh to her bed, leaving him in an undignified heap. Usagi, with some help from Agumon, managed to get him lying on his back. Sayo left his understandably worried team to hover over Koh as she saw the other tamers out. 

After the last one warped out, she took a few moments to appreciate the silence. Sayo liked her friends, but they were a rowdy bunch sometimes. 

She made her way back to her bedroom. 

“Incoming!” Sayo ducked as Patamon flew over her head, a clean hand towel clenched in his front paws. He dropped it into Usagi’s hands. “Thanks, Ace,” she said. Her ears began flapping in small circles, foam appearing from the special soap glands hidden in them until Usagi managed to create a decently sized bubble that floated in front of her. With a snap of cold she froze it, catching the bubble as it fell in the towel. 

She passed the make-shift compress to Coronamon, who had been hovering worriedly at Koh’s side all the while. He gently pressed it against the magnificent bruise forming on the right side of Koh’s temple. He would have one killer of a headache when he woke up.

“Well, this was an awful showing on our parts.” Agumon said. Kumatora patted her on the shoulder. “Happens to the best of us.” he said. 

Hana grinned from her spot next to Koh on the bed. She playfully nudged at Patamon with her shoulder, adding “Yeah, and it doesn’t help when the tamer is focused on someone other than his opponent.” 

Agumon rolled her eyes but she seemed to relax a little. She pulled herself up on the bed, gesturing for Kumatora to sit next to her. 

It suddenly occurred to Sayo that her digimon had arranged themselves around Koh in tandem with his digimon so that they formed a protective circle around him. There was one open spot, and with a laugh she realized it was meant for her. She sat on the edge of the bed, completing the circle. 

Sayo leaned back a little on her elbows, sighing. All things considered, the day had been exhausting, but kind of fun. 

Maybe she’d invite the others over again some other time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter put me like... a month? two months? off my posting schedule. Whoops! I'm hopefully back on track now. We're nearing the endgame...
> 
> Chapter Trivia:  
> I'm like 90% sure Dorothy never mentions what her digimon partner is, so I choose one at random for her.


	8. A New Normal

“Did today really happen?” Usagi asked, leaning heavily on her crescent scythe. Sayo shrugged in response, a movement echoed by the other digimon. She still hadn’t managed to process her own complicated mix of elation and exhaustion.  

Kowloon Co. had once more cropped up during one of her missions. Of course, Sayo and her team confronted them, only to run into some… interesting revelations.  

The rumors surrounding the group all implied that they were a set of highly skilled mercenaries for hire that would seek out targets and kill them. It turned out the truth was stranger than that: the Merchants of Death weren’t a team of assassins, they were high-level programmers that sold viruses to would-be villains. They just happened to be excellent fighters as well, who forced her into a round of battles. Back to back. With no opportunities to rest in-between.

Unbelievable.

Regardless, this last mission marked significant forward progress for Night Crow. If Kowloon Co. could deliver on a program to open access to Center Bridge, they would finally be able to reach the members of Light Fang who were under the command of the brainwashing virus. From there, they could start working on a plan to get the anti-virus program to them. 

There were still a hundred obstacles in their way, but after weeks of stagnation, Sayo finally had a breakthrough. The relief that swept through the admin room had nearly been palpable. Even if she rarely showed signs of it, Chief Julia had clearly been under a lot of stress trying to come up with a plan of action. Sayo left her to talk with SkullBachulimon and sort out what would come next.  

The only person left to inform was Koh, and Sayo was growing more excited with every step to share the news. Of everyone involved, he had the most personal stakes in seeing Sunshine City returned. Though he hid it well, Sayo knew that being unable to directly help his teammates and friends still grinded at him. Some good news could be just the thing to cheer him up.  

In her excitement, Sayo didn’t immediately notice how quiet it was when she passed through the portal into her home. “I’m back!” she called up the ladder. Her call was met with silence. She shrugged and pulled herself up, figuring Koh might have opted to sleep in. When she looked over at the bedroom, though, she didn’t spot a burst of blond hair among the pillows.

A tendril of concern wiggled into her mind. “Koh?” Sayo called, feeling a touch silly. She walked over to the bedroom, noting that the bathroom door was cracked open on the way there. She looked down towards the water access, knowing that he sometimes liked to sit and think on the sand, but Koh wasn’t there either.

As she stood thinking a wave of cold air drifted over Sayo, making her shiver. Unbidden, an image of Access Glacier rose in her mind. Finding both her chief and her rival there under the effects of the brainwashing virus had been… unpleasant, to say the least. Her nightmares had updated to occasionally feature the two of them standing in a cold, featureless white room, faces devoid of any emotion. Sayo took a half-step forward then aborted the move, rocking back on her heels.

Usagi peered down at her. “Sayo? You feeling alright?”

She shook her head, physically dispelling the memory. Of course, the wave of cold air could only have been from Usagi. Sayo tried to smile at her to alleviate her concern. From the look she got back, She didn’t quite succeed.

She considered sending him a message on her digivice.

_I’m being silly_ , she thought. _Nothing can reach Koh from a Tamer home. The virus wasn’t able to breach their security before, so it certainly couldn’t now. And it’s not like he has to tell me if he wants to go out._

Though, he had never expressed a desire to leave after taking up residency in her home. She had asked a few times if he ever felt like exploring Dark Moon, but he would brush her off. _“Considering everything that’s going on, I think people would panic if there was a random Light Fang tamer wandering around aimlessly.”_ He had explained. 

That was back during the second week of his stay. It could have been that he grew more comfortable with the idea of being around the city after coming to know more members of Night Claw. Her excitement from early had entirely vanished by now, replaced with an anxious thrum of worry. She bit at her lip, uncertain of how to proceed, when a voice cut off her thoughts.

“Oh, Sayo! Welcome back!” Koh’s voice sounded from somewhere above her. Her head whipped up to see him on the platform above her. Koh had climbed up to the crow’s nest on her island that was meant for stargazing but mostly went ignored. 

He climbed down the ladder, saying something about a breeze up there and catching more sun and falling asleep. Sayo just blinked at him, not really processing anything that he was saying. Koh finally noticed her silence and tilted his head, confused. “Sayo?”

He’d only been here a few weeks, and already Sayo was used to seeing him as soon as she came home. How had Koh’s presence become important to her sense of stability so quickly? Less than a month ago, she had been perfectly content with her solitary life style. 

Suddenly Koh was right next to her, worry tightening his face.

“Is everything alright?”

“Better than alright!” Hana cut in, casting a worried look at Sayo before fluttering around Koh in a circle, effectively distracting him. It gave Sayo a moment to pull herself together. Dimly, she realized that she must have broadcasted her turmoil to her digimon. 

“There’s been a breakthrough on the virus separating the cities!” Hana said.

His face lit up. “Seriously?!” Koh said. His digivice lit up as in response to his excitement, and the tinny voices of his digimon could be heard crowing from within.

“What’s happened? Oh, hang on,” Koh held up the device to his face. “Chill out a little guys, there isn’t enough for all of us to stand here.”

“The people demand answers!” Patamon cried out. “We have a right to know the truth!”

“You can hear perfectly fine from in there,” Koh pointed out. “Let them explain more.”

A groan was heard, but the digivice dimmed to a soft glow. Koh gestured for them to continue.

“We hired a group of mercenaries.” Kumatora told him. “They can write code to get us in.”

“Mercenaries? The Union doesn’t usually like when we bring in third parties. They must be something special to get permission.” Koh mused.

“It’s… something like that.” Sayo said, forcibly bringing herself back into the conversation. Luckily, Koh’s obvious excitement was contagious. She felt her own enthusiasm pouring back in, overriding her concerns. She could worry about how quickly she formed an attachment to Koh later. “It’s kind of crazy.”

“‘Kind of’?,” Hana twittered. “It’s Kowloon Co.. Who would have thought they’d help us?”

Koh paused, a peculiar look crossing his face. “Kowloon Co.. The group Mercurymon is part of. The guy who literally just sent you back here covered in bruises.”

“Well—“ Sayo began.

“The group that’s called the Merchants of Death. Those guys are _helping_ us.”

She shrugged helplessly. “I said it was crazy. Today’s mission led me to their leader, SkullBaculimon, and we beat him in a fight. Somehow that’s all it took to convince him to help out.”

That, and a ton of money that Sayo promised the Union would pay them. But Koh didn’t need to know that part.

Koh stared at her somewhat suspiciously. “Are you really okay?” he asked. Sayo blinked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Your last encounter with a Merchant of Death went… badly, and it sounds like you meet all of them this time around.”

He clearly didn’t mean anything by it, but the reminder of her mistake stung and Sayo was already feeling rather frayed around the edges.

“Clearly, we managed to handle them.” she said curtly. 

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Koh said. “I know you’re more than capable. It’s just… It’s not like I can help you much from here.” 

When she began to frown, he added, “I know we talked about this, but I mean in an immediate sense. If Phascomon reports that you’re in a bad situation, I wouldn’t be able to respond and get to you fast enough. I worry, you know.” 

Her face turned bright pink. “You don’t need to worry about me,” she stuttered out. 

He shrugged, a hapless grin spread across his equally pink face. “I’m not sure I can help it.”  

That was terribly embarrassing, if the rising heat in both of their faces was any indication. Sayo suddenly understood the way Kakumi acted around Sukikiyo so much better. The urge to deflect away from the sentiment in Koh’s words was almost overwhelming.

It was one thing to acknowledge her feelings to herself and a completely different thing to be confronted with them.

The moment dragged out, the silence between them growing awkward. Koh coughed, passed his hand through his hair. “Uh, you know. Can’t let my rival get beat by someone else.”  

“Oh.” Sayo said. Then, she hastily added, “Oh, right! Right. Friendly rivals. That’s what we are.”

A flood of disbelief and annoyance came pouring from her digimon. She thought she heard Hana muffle a scream in her throat. With the patience of a girl on her last strand of sanity, she gently pulled up a mental wall between herself and them. Sayo had dealt with enough emotion whiplash for one day.

This could wait, she told herself firmly. Saving the digital world came before dealing with any personal misunderstandings between herself and her… crush.

(And if that was an excuse to avoid talking about her feelings openly, well, no one would know but her.)

Koh cleared his throat and leveled a hand at Sayo. “So, this SkullBaluchimon really thinks he can open the way to Sunshine City?”

She nodded, glad for the change of subject. “Technically, he wrote the program blocking us in the first place, so it shouldn’t be too hard for him to figure out.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“We escorted him to the Admin room. I imagine he’s there now.” Hana answered. 

Koh opened his mouth, but before he could say anything his digivice lit up. His team burst out in a flurry of light and motion. Hana and Usagi immediately flew up into the open space above them as the new arrivals threatened to send the group tumbling into the digital ocean below. 

Coronamon and Patamon danced around Koh, looking like an orange and red whirlwind. Agumon stood off to the side, arms crossed and trying to look annoyed by the display. Coronamon snagged her arm during one of his turns, and she half-heartedly tried to shake him off before joining the dance with a huff. Koh tried to frown at them, but the edges of his mouth kept pulling up into a smile. “I asked you all to wait.”

“Forget that!” Coronamon cried. “We need to celebrate!”

He managed to keep up his façade for a few more seconds, but finally a smile burst forth. Koh dropped to his knee, laughing while pulling them in for a hug. “What are we celebrating, exactly?” he asked them.

“Breakthroughs, and Night Claw!” Patamon whooped a few times. “Sayo and the Dream Team!”

“A game plan!” Coronamon added.

“Mmm, that seems worth celebrating, I guess.” Koh smiled softly, looking up at Sayo as he did. “We’re so close now. Everyone that’s stuck over there… We can finally help them.”

It’s a very particular feeling, being happy because someone you’ve come to care for is happy. Sayo felt her chest fill with it, a light, airy feeling that blew away any lingering concern or stress.

Sayo remembered the decision she made back when they had first cooked together. Take care of the crisis, then worry about removing any misunderstandings between herself and Koh. Seeing how relieved Koh was now confirmed for her that this was the right way to proceed.

(And if she now realized it was an excuse to avoid confronting her feelings, well, Sayo was the only one who knew.)

~ ~ ~ 

Koh resolutely told himself that he was not sneaking around. Just because he waited to ask Phascomon for information until after Sayo had left and would be gone for hours did not mean he was sneaking around. Sayo was gone a lot. It was totally normal that he would end up asking for information when she wasn’t there.

Phascomon turned to face him as Koh approached his terminal. “Wow.” the digimon deadpanned. “What are you up to?”

“I’m not up to anything!” Koh denied, flustered. “Why would you think that?”

Phascomon pointed at him with a digimin stick. “Cuz you look like it.” He shrugged lazily. “Well, as long as you aren’t trying to like, steal Sayo’s stuff, it’s none of my business.”

Koh spluttered. “I’m not stealing anything!” 

“Sure, of course not. Whaddya need, Light Fang?” 

He decided to drop the issue of his innocence and jump straight to the point. “Do you have SkullBaluchimon’s contact info?” 

“Oh, sure. Sayo got it when she made the deal. Here,” Phascomon flicked something across his screen. A moment later Koh’s digivice lit up, signaling that it has received a new message. “That will link you straight to SkullBaluchimon.” 

“Thanks.” he replied. Phascomon didn’t turn back around, just waved his paw dismissively. 

Koh waited approximately four seconds before blurting out. “Don’t you want to know why I needed it?”

“Not really.” Phascomon replied. “Your decision to start networking is far less interesting than my shows.” 

“Oh.” 

He walked back to the Command Center (the bedroom) where his digimon were spread across the bed in various states of interest. 

“Did you get it?” Patamon asked. “Oh, you should have let me distract him, and then we could have hacked his computer!” His wings flapped open and shut excitedly. 

“Do you even know how to hack something?” Agumon asked him. 

“No, but we’re made of data. I bet I could figure it out.” Patamon answered. She rolled her eyes.

“Of course.”

“Whether he could or not, I got the info.” Koh told them. Patamon cheered. Coronamon stood up on the bed and leaned over to stare at the number on his digivice. 

“That was easy. What’re you going to say to him?” he asked. 

“Uh. Haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“Pfft, lame.” Coronamon snatched the digivice out of Koh’s hand, ignoring his cry of protest. He opened the messenger app and began typing rapidly. “The guy already said he’d help Union, so there’s no reason he wouldn’t agree to help us.”

Koh made a wild lunge for the device. Coronamon danced out of his reach, holding it as high into the air as he could while still furiously typing.

“Coronamon, knock it off! What are you writing?” Koh shouted.

Just as Koh’s finger brushed against it, Coronamon yelled “Hot potato!” and threw it to Patamon. He caught it and struggled to keep himself aloft while adding his own lines of text.

Koh leapt after it. Patamon tried to fly higher than he could jump, but Koh cheated a little by deliberately tugging on their bond. The resulting distraction caused Patamon to drop into arms reach. With a cry, he launched the digivice into the air, rather than let Koh take it from him.

Coronamon darted towards it at the same time that Koh did. The device hit the bed and got lost between two pillows. They dove after it, launching pillows towards the floor in their bid to reach the digivice first.

“Where’d it go?” Coronamon grunted, barely avoiding Koh’s flailing limbs while trying to continue his own search.

“I think I saw it fall to the floor!” Patamon replied before a feather pillow hit him square on. He let out a squawk and landed in an undignified heap on the floor.

Agumon cleared her throat. They froze. As one, the three boys turned to face her. The digivice was clutched in her clawed hand. She raised an eyebrow at them. No one moved.

Assured that they had been dissuaded from trying to take the digivice away from her, Agumon read through the message they had created. She scoffed and deleted all the text, replacing it with two short lines. She clicked the send button with a decisive tap. 

“There.” She handed the device to Koh.

He opened the message app and braced for impact, but her message was pretty tame: _This is Koh of Light Fang. I have a proposition, if you feel like taking on a challenge_.

“Well, it lacks flavor, but I guess that’ll work” Coronamon said from over Koh’s shoulder.

“It doesn’t need _flavor._ ” Agumon sniffed. “All we need to do is appeal to his sense of pride. The intrigue will lure SkullBaluchimon in.”

“That’s dumb. You should’ve threatened him more!” Patamon said.

Agumon bristled. “Oh, certainly your idea was so much better. I think you wrote that you would, quote, ‘Chew his flesh and boil his bones’, an interesting threat given that he _doesn’t have skin._ ” The digimon’s bickering was cut off by a message alert.

_A challenge, huh? I’m busy enough with this job for Union, but since I’m sort of responsible for your team being… indisposed, I guess I can hear you out._

Patamon stared at the message, then said “How smug does Agumon look right now?”

“Very.” Koh told him. Patamon grimaced like he just bit into a lemon.

“Don’t even say it.” He told her.

“A lady doesn’t need to brag about being right.” She replied.

Coronamon rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth, probably to join in the friendly riffing, but noticed that Koh was still staring at the message.

“You alright there, tamer?” he asked, plopping down on the bed next to him. Koh shook his head.

 “Are you guys really okay with this? You agreed so quickly, but…” Koh looked around the room, locking eyes with each of the digimon in turn. “You know I won’t be mad if you change your mind. This is a lot to ask of anyone.”

Silence filled the room as everyone grew serious.

“Koh, you’re our tamer. We trust your call.” Agumon finally said, laying a heavy clawed hand over his shoulder.

“Yeah, I don’t pick just any human to be my partner you know.” Coronamon added. “Gotta be someone real special to bond with a member of the Olympus Twelve.”

Koh gave him an unimpressed look. “Did you just compliment yourself?”

The digimon shrugged in response. “Myself, yourself, it’s all the same really.”

Patamon cut off his rely by landing heavily on Koh’s head. “I like Sayo! If this will help her, I’m fine with it!” He pulled himself forward, twisting in a complicated way so he could sort of make eye contact with Koh. “But more importantly, you’re my precious tamer! I know you wouldn’t ask us to do dumb stuff.”

Koh felt himself tearing up. He threw his arms out, gathering Coronamon and Agumon under them. “Aw, you guys… You really can make a guy feel sentimental.”

They protested the sudden movement, but no one actually tried to pull away from the group hug.

“Besides,” Coronamon piped up, “Lunamon and I were always going to join up once our tamers were gone. This’ll just speed it up.”

“Wow.” Koh said. “Way to ruin the moment with a brutal reminder of my human lifespan.”

“Eh, you’ll probably die earlier than that anyway, being a tamer who goes on dangerous missions and all.”

“Okay! Moment over,” Koh said, standing up. The digimon fell into the space he left behind in a tangled heap. Koh opened the messaged app up again, and began typing.

_Here’s what I was thinking..._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sayo: Oh I'm so emotionally mature I can calmly accept that I like Koh  
> Also Sayo: Oh, I have to actually tell him that I like him? Absolutely not. 
> 
> Next Chapter: Literally Everything Happens All At Once


	9. No Take-backs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was not properly proofread because I'm already so late on my schedule and sometimes It Is What It Is.
> 
> Also, note that new tag baby.

Three days after Night Claw enlisted the help of Kowloon Co., Koh received a mass alert from Light Fang administration. 

Ice flood his veins as the unique tone rang out. His panic spread unchecked through his bonds, causing the digimon to send back feelings of confusion and worry. He could sense them demanding to be let out of the digivice, but Koh only gripped the device tighter and stared at the alert. He didn’t want to open it. The only person with the authority to send out a team-wide alert was Chief Glare, and he was under the virus’ sway. 

His digimon tugged on the bond, drawing out the power they needed to upload into the space. Patamon landed on his head, physically interrupting Koh’s thoughts. Little paws pat at his hair as a wave of calm filtered down the bond, offering Koh something else to focus on. 

“No point in getting so worked up before you’ve even read it, Koh.” Patamon said. Agumon hummed her agreement as she perched on a kitchen chair. 

He took a deep breath. “Right.” Koh said slowly. “You’re right.” 

“It’s probably nothing, if it’s being sent from Chief Brainwashed.” Coronamon said. He pulled Koh’s wrist towards himself and tapped the message open. “You remember how they babble nonsense.”

He started to read the message.Tendrils of fear reached into Koh’s mind, originating from Coronamon. Koh pulled the device away from him and read, feeling himself grow pale with every word.

“Or it’s really bad.” Coronamon said in a subdued tone. 

_‘Gather at the gate for a full assault on Dark Moon City.’_

Koh didn’t remember deciding to leave, but he suddenly found himself and his team racing through the streets of Dark Moon, gunning for the Night Claw administration room. They had officially run out of time.

He barely managed to take in the current state of the admin room as he charged in, ignoring the cries of protest from the front guards. There were several tamers in the room, but the only ones he noted were Chief Julia and Sayo. Sayo looked surprised to see him. Koh tried to grin at her, but it felt weird on his face, and her expression turned to one of concern. Well, so much for reassuring her. 

SkullBaluchimon was beside Chief Julia and her partner digimon, ChaosDukemon. Evidently, he was interrupting an important conversation. SkullBaluchimon had turned when Koh ran into the room. He nodded at Koh in the way that people do when they share certain information. It was extremely unsubtle.

Koh nodded back, then turned his attention to Chief Julia. She had a neutral expression, so he guessed that she wasn’t too upset about him barging in. He saluted and said “We have a problem.”

“When don’t we?” she replied. The last few weeks must have been exhausting for the woman, but it didn’t show on her face. Her light blue hair was pulled back into a smart ponytail and pinned away neatly by a surprisingly cute crescent moon clip. The rest of her Chief uniform was similarly in perfect order. “Report.”

The room was sent into chaos after Koh shared the message. Chief Julia barked orders to the operators, issuing orders for tamers to be sent to the bridge between the two cities. 

ChaosDukemon addressed SkullBaluchimon. “Are we ready to break the barricade?” he asked. 

SkullBaluchimon shuffled on his feet. “I’m not sure we need to anymore. Sounds like Sunshine City decided to drop it on their own, rather than wait for me to crack it. The hacking program _is_ ready, though. ”

He nodded. “We’d like for you to make your way to the wall. If we can gather our forces and breach before Light Fang, we gain a small advantage.”

SkullBaluchimon shrugged his massive shoulders. “You’re the boss. But to be clear, as soon as the fighting breaks out, I’m gone. Risking my own neck isn’t part of the contract.”

“We expected little else.” ChaosDukemon replied frigidly. He swept off to confer with Chief Julia. 

“Koh!” Sayo’s voice rang through the room, and noisy was it was Koh immediately zeroed in on it. She waved her hand in the air, trying to catch his notice. He wondered why she didn’t have Lillymon or Crescentmon come get him, but none of her digimon were in sight. Another time that may have worried him, but right now Koh considered himself lucky. 

Koh tried his best to pretend like he couldn’t see Sayo attempting to get his attention. She gave up on trying to call him across a noisy room and began weaving her way past the operators towards him. Koh immediately panicked, because if Sayo reached him before he pulled his plan off he would almost certainly give himself away.

As if summoned by his plight, SkullBaluchimon cleared his throat loudly and stepped in front of Koh, blocking Sayo from his sight. 

 

“Koh, could you step over here with me for a moment? I need you to… hold some things for me! With your opposable thumbs!”

Koh plastered a grin over his face. “Yes, of course! Let’s go do that, right now!” 

As he scurried off, Koh caught a glimpse of Sayo looking between him and SkullBaluchimon with obvious confusion. 

Her eyes narrowed. Koh figured they’d have an hour before she tracked them down. 

 ~ ~ ~

It was surprising how much she wanted to follow as Koh and SkullBaluchimon slunk off together. The fact that they were clearly up to something sent red alarms blaring in her head, but duty came first. Sayo approached Chief Julia and waited for command. 

Her chief flicked her eyes over to her then back to the screen she was watching. “Sayo, you’re to head to the gate as well. I want you to be one of the first tamers through when we breach.”

“What’s my mission once I get in?” Sayo asked. 

“Find Glare. See if you can knock him out of the hypnosis. If you can’t, try to retrieve his digivice. There are codes on it that we can use to contain Sunshine City again.” Chief Julia crossed her arms in thought. “At least until we’re ready to spread the anti-virus through both Cities.” She turned to face her fully.

For a split second, her chief looked very tired. Then Chief Julia straightened up to her full height and said, “I’m counting on you.”

Sayo saluted and left immediately. If she was going to find Koh before she reported in, she was going to need to be quick.

~ ~ ~ 

Sayo found Koh and SkullBaluchimon hidden alongside the barrier that separated Sunshine City and Dark Moon City. SkullBaluchimon saw her approach first and snorted. “Well, she sniffed us out fast.”

She cocked an eyebrow at them. “When did you two meet?”

Koh at least had the decency to look sheepish as he explained himself.

“I contacted SkullBaluchimon a while ago. This isn’t exactly the plan we made, but it’s close enough.” He stepped to the side, revealing a portal in the ground behind him.

“Where does that lead?” Sayo asked, but she knew. She just needed to hear him admit it.

“Sunshine City.” SkullBaluchimon said, looking rather smug. “ I used the codes on the kid’s digivice to create a work-around.”

“Mmm. And why didn’t you tell Chief Julia you could do that?”

He grinned wickedly. “She didn’t ask.” Then he shrugged, adding “And anyway, it’s not really stable enough for a bunch of people to pass through. This is more of a private passage, modeled off the tamer home entrances.”

Sayo filed away a mental note to tell security to consider beefing up the tamer home firewalls again. Kowloon Co. knew way more about Union security than they need to.

Koh stepped towards her. “We thought if we could create a secret entrance, maybe there could be a reconnaissance mission to Sunshine City. It’s too late for that now, but maybe this portal can still be used. Go in stealthily while everyone is distracted at the front gate and do… “ He shook his head, lost on how to end that sentence. “... _something_ to stop it. A full-on assault between Light Fang and Night Claw… could you even imagine how bad that would get?”

Sayo winced. She could, and she didn’t like the idea any more than he did. “That doesn’t mean you should go there by yourself. I mean, what would I do if that virus infected you again?”

Koh laughed. “The plan isn’t for me to go in.” He held out his hand, gesturing for her to take something. She rolled her eyes but obligingly offered an open palm. Her eyes widened as he pressed a strikingly familiar shape into her hand. She barely registered his words, staring in disbelief at the digivice in her hand.

“It’s for you.” Koh finished.

She could feel a gentle heat resonating from Koh’s digivice. It would have been easy to brush it off as residual heat from his hand, but a whisper of energy had appeared in her mind, soft and peach and unmistakably Koh’s own. Already, her omni-type affinity began creating a bond between herself and the digivice, not forcing out Koh’s own bond but simply forming along-side it.   

“No.” She tried to push it back into his hand, but Koh refused to tighten his grip and she wouldn’t allow it to fall to the floor. “Koh, this is-- you couldn’t possibly trust me with this much!”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he countered. “Sayo, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but you’re a lot stronger than I am. You can resist the virus without a vaccine. You’re the better tamer for the job.

“But I… You won’t be able to undo this.” She protested. “This will bind your digimon to me…”

 _And you too,_ she thought, but she couldn’t make herself say it out loud. Couldn’t begin to question what it meant, if he was okay with it.

“I know. They know what it means, too.” Koh said. “But you can only get through the backdoor with my digivice’s codes.” As he spoke, Sayo could feel something forming between them, a growing awareness. The digimon too: Coronamon, Agumon, and Patamon greeted her as they connected their code to hers. 

She tried to give them a proper greeting back, but Sayo was still reeling from how fast everything was moving. She was also fairly distracted by the sensation of forming a bond with a human for the first time. It felt… _weird_. Not bad, but, odd. She brushed against Koh’s mind and her thoughts cut off when she met no resistance or surprise but warm, calm acceptance. 

Any protest Sayo had left died off in the face of Koh’s sincerity. She attached Ko’s digivice to her lanyard, making sure it hung securely next to her own. She warmed at the thought that the orange and black device completed her own purple and black device nicely. 

Amusement filtered into her awareness. Koh had picked up on her thought. 

Okay, she needed to go before she thought of anything else embarrassing.  

Sayo stepped onto the teleporter that SkullBaluchimon created. As the light rose around her, lifting her hair a little with its strength, she locked eyes with Koh.

 “I’ll take care of this.” She promised him.

“I know you will.” he replied. “Find Chief Glare. You should be able to call off the attack with his digivice.”

Sayo nodded, and with a flash of light she was gone.

~ ~ ~

She had been to Sunshine City twice before. Both trips had been simple, Union business related matters, and she hadn’t had an opportunity to explore for the pleasure of it. Now, lost in the confusion of a backwards City, Sayo wished she had found the time to do so.

Sunshine City was an explosion. Light poured from everywhere, blinding and oppressive, searing her eyes until she was forced to pull her goggles over them. The darkened lenses protected her, and she dared to hope the sunspots might fade from her vision one day.

Light Fang tamers and digimon stood in random positions all throughout the city. Their posture was off, stiff in a way that normal human beings couldn’t manage. When she came near, Sayo could hear them whispering their commands under their breath. 

She tried not to linger around those tamers for long. 

The ones who didn’t look right through her would sneer as they recognized the Night Claw colors of her uniform and attack.

Time blurred into a slideshow of spores, flashing blades, and massive furred limbs. Sayo’s arms had gone numb with ice a long time ago. Her legs screamed in protest when she rolled or leapt away from an attack. When a Nefertimon dropped out of the sky directly onto her, Sayo didn’t even time to draw the breath to scream. Involuntarily, her eyes slammed shut before the massive paw made contact with her.  

The blow never landed. Peach light flashed behind her eyes, and something inside of her _pulled_ outward. Heat spilled onto her face, but it felt comforting, like a beam of sunlight. Sayo opened her eyes to Apollomon’s back. He snarled wordlessly at the Nefertimon and pushed it back. RizeGreymon and MagnaAngemon flanked him on either side, preventing any other flying digimon from getting involved.

Her team fell back and closed ranks around them, offering Sayo a chance to catch her breath. Usagi flashed a wicked smile at her twin. “Good to see you finally caught up with me.” she teased.

Apollomon scoffed, looking down his muzzle at her. “Good to see you’re still much shorter than me, even as a mega.” He looked at his own body, then looked at Sayo with a curious expression. “How am I in mega form, anyway?” 

She patted Koh’s digivice. “I’m guessing a little, but I think having this with is helping. It’s got some residual energy from Koh that you must have pulled on instinctually. Without it, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get any of you three past rookie level.” 

Even as she said it, Sayo could feel the drain of maintaining so many high-level digivolutions at once. It would be a struggle, but she felt that she could hold it up for a few more hours.

Apollomon frowned. “I don’t think I quite get it, but okay.”

Koh’s team rallied and formed a wall between the Light Fang digimon and Sayo’s team. RizeGreymon turned and launched a slew of digital missiles across the field. Compromised as they were, the brainwashed digimon still had enough sense to back away out of the area of destruction. 

Apollomon crossed his arms, staring out towards where the bulk of the Light Fang tamers were taking shelter. “Jeez, you’re not gonna be able to get anywhere with this lot slowing you down.”

MagnaAngemon gestured for Sayo to move on. “We’ll handle this. Admin Room is that way.” He pointed straight ahead, directly through the mass of digimon ahead of them.

“Right.” Sayo filtered energy into her legs and jumped, ignoring the strange empty feeling that came when she borrowed Usagi’s anti-gravity ability. Hana and Usagi combined their efforts to lift Kumatora into the air, soaring over the battlefield.

The Light Fang tried to attack, but MagnaAngemon and Apollomon were quick to follow in their wake, unleashing fire and holy energy into the air. Sayo and her team managed to make their way past the fray, and deeper into the heart of Sunshine City.

~ ~ ~  

She found Ophanimon C and Chief Glare exactly where they were supposed to be.

She remembers they said something, but it was the same generic threats the other Light Fang had said. Sayo forgot their words in the fight that followed. 

She was pretty sure that flaming wings were going to be seared into her vision forever.

When it was over, and Chief Glare returned to his senses and Ophanimon turned back to normal, it turned out to not be over at all. The Chrono Core and Grimmon waited deep in a glitched, warped space. The entrance alone made chills crawl up her spine as her mind attempted to understand the area and failed. 

Chief Glare promised to send out a new message to delay the compromised Light Fang tamers from attacking. He and Ophanimon also promised to protect the entrance from any tamers that attempted to follow her. They were barely able to stand, but Sayo understood their determination. It must have been hard on Chief Glare to realize how compromised the team he swore to lead had become. She thanked them for their efforts, and pressed onwards.

~ ~ ~ 

The Chrono Core managed to ooze an atmosphere of intensity, despite looking exactly like a large, grey egg. It laughed when they arrived.

Grimmon stood silently in the center of the corrupted space. Sayo could have mistaken it for a statue if not for the subtle movement of its breathing and the aura of _wrong_ it always gave off; the distinct sense that she was looking at something that never was and shouldn’t have been. It made her ache somewhere deep in her heart, the part of her that could reach out and connect and bond trying to find the center of Grimmon and finding emptiness instead. 

“Good of you to come here, Tamer.” the Chrono Core taunted. “Saves me the trouble of finding you myself.”

Sayo found her core of ice and pulled from it until a spear-shaped icicle formed in her hands. She gripped it, ignoring the burn of frost that spread up both of her arms.

“It ends here.” She said.

“It’s far too late! Grimmon is ready to reach it’s final form, and it’s power will be unstoppable!”

Energy gathered and then pulsed away from the Chrono Core, rushing over Sayo. The brainwashing virus. Evidently it wanted to try one last time to infect her with it.

Of course, _of course,_ at the critical moment her apparent immunity to the brainwashing virus would fail her.

It felt like the world went from full color to greyscale. The cries of her digimon faded until they were miles away. Distantly, as if in a dream, she watched as Dianamon fell to her knees, followed by Lillymon and Grizzlymon.

Static danced over her vision. The last thing she could see was ChaosGrimmon, with its laughter filling her ears. Even that fell away, until all Sayo knew was darkness.

…

… 

The girl isn’t sure how much time passed in that space. She isn’t sure how long she’s been there, or what she was waiting for.  She tried to remember, but it felt like reaching into empty space. The sensation that something was sitting just beyond her reach made her head throb in pain, so the girl stopped trying.

She decided to just wait more. Something would happen, she was sure. Finally, her patience was rewarded by a dark blue light that seemed to seep into the darkness, so dark in color that it nearly blended it. It took the girl a few moments to realize that the blue light was coming from her. It gathered in a mass in her chest, drifting away in tendrils to unseen points within the void around her.

She blinked, and at once she was no longer alone in the darkness. Three digimon were with here. They stood equidistance away, all staring at her. That blue light formed all around them, starting in their chests, until their own tethers reached out to meet with hers.

The rush of energy that surged through the tethers made the girl gasp.

“Do I know you?” the Palmon said. She rubbed at her chin in thought. “I’m pretty sure I know you all.”

Kumamon shrugged. His body language was lax, but his eyes were darting rapidly between them all. “I can’t remember,” he said.

The Lunamon was staring at her. “I feel like… I’ve known you for a long time. But I don’t know any humans…” She looked at the tether connecting them. Her paw rose and hovered just above the light. “I... have a Tamer partner?” Lunamon looked at her again. “You’re my Tamer?”

It flashed into Sayo’s mind. A digivice forming between her hand and the Lunamon’s hand, the two clasped tightly together as their bond realized for the first time. An egg cradled by vines found deep in a forest. A baby digimon, lost on the mountainside.

“How could I forget any of this?” Sayo wondered. The darkness stirred as if in response to her words, and the inky blue tethers _(not tethers, bonds, this was their bond)_ pulled taunt as blank tendrils wound around them. Sayo could feel the darkness inside of her now, attempting to pull her back under. She struggled against it. The digimon fought too, lashing at the dark with attacks that fizzled and hit nothing.

 _Not this time,_ Sayo swore. _I will not lose to this again!_ She resisted with everything she had. The inky blue light increased with her efforts, illuminating the void. It was like casting a match into a pit. It didn’t seem like enough on its own.  

But then, Sayo had more than her own strength to call on.

She dug deeper into herself and found the newest bond that she had created. A thread of peach light appeared alongside the blue. It cut through the darkness, filling her with warmth until Sayo could breathe again. Three new threads appeared in a glimmer, thickening the peach light to a rope that lead to an unseen point in the void.

“This way!” A male voice filled with sunlight called out to her. “Don’t give in, Sayo!” Several voices followed it: her friends, her chief, practically all of Dark Moon calling her name in an effort to bring her back.

Sayo took a steadying breath and grabbed the rope. The light intensified, combining with her own inky blue. It pushed out the darkness until it looked as if she were floating in the dusk sky, a dark backdrop of the stars still lit by the sunset. Sayo felt entranced by the sight. She allowed herself to hover there for a few more precious moments, feeling some of her exhaustion fade away.  

As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t linger in that light-filled place forever. Sayo’s eyes flew open and she locked gazes with Usagi.

“Are we back?” she asked.

“We’re back.” Sayo confirmed.

“With a vengeance!” Hana added. Kumatora huffed in laughter. He shuffled a step closer to Sayo, dipping down his entire front half in invitation. She climbed onto his back. Being directly connected to his solid, warm body helped ground her in reality. 

Sayo faced ChaosGrimmon as her digimon flanked her sides. It roared at her in mindless fury. The virus still remained in the air, occasionally trying to breach into her mind again, but it found no purchase.

The icicle spear had fallen slack in her hand while she had been under ChaosGrimmon’s control. Sayo hefted the spear until she could point the sharpened end at the monster.

“Let’s try this again,” she said. “This ends _now.”_

~ ~ ~

Apollomon flew down the corrupted hallways, barely slowing down enough to safely navigate through the portals in a bid to get to Sayo just a second faster. Patamon and Agumon (devolved in an effort to free up more energy for Team Sayo to fight with) clung to his shoulders with no small amount of struggle.

“Maybe slow down a little?” Agumon shouted into his ear. “We won’t be much help if you slice yourself in half going through corrupted portals!”

Patamon made a noise of agreement. His wings rowed helplessly in the air while his stubby legs scrambled for purchase on Apollomon’s convoluted armor.

He didn’t slow down, but he did try to fly steadier for their sake. Apollomon grit his teeth, straining to feel through his new bond with Sayo to get some idea of how she was doing. Compared to the perfect intuition of navigating his partnership with Koh, it was like trying to do skilled movement with a new limb. He couldn’t get a feel on how she was.

Apollomon _could_ feel himself weakening as the amount of energy he received from his bonded tamer diminished. He wouldn’t be able to hold on to his mega form much longer.

They had all promised Koh to look out for Sayo. Apollomon plowed through the next portal.

The scene they came upon was one of chaos. The room was filled with debris: stone torn out of the floor, vines grown at random and pockmarked with bursts of ice. There wasn’t a sign of a living soul in there.

Patamon whistled as he looked around the room. “They certainly make a good demo team, huh?”

Agumon shot him a scathing look. Patamon flinched.

“Inappropriate, sorry.” He muttered.

“Let’s search the room.” Apollomon said. He gently lowered Agumon to the floor, and Patamon fluttered off. The Sun God looked around for a long moment, but he didn’t sense any danger. Reluctantly, he devolved back down to rookie. He wouldn’t be able to search if he fainted of exhaustion from stubbornly remaining in a form he couldn’t hold on his own.

They worked in a loose pattern, with Coronamon searching the far left, Agumon the right, and Patamon flying down the middle. For a long while, all they could find were shards of stone and frosted petals. Coronamon felt his agitation rising with every step.

Finally, he spotted a hint of purple fabric under some rubble.

“Over here!” he shouted, already racing towards the pile. He pulled the stones from the top, grunting with exertion when one proved too heavy. He strained at it, feeling the muscles in his arms burn in protest.

Finally it seemed to grow lighter and he could shove it out of the way. Agumon huffed at him, claws already around the next stone. “You’ll throw your back out lifting alone like that. Then you won’t be able to help anyone.”  

It took far too long for them to uncover Sayo. The purple fabric turned out to be her cat-ear hat. Sayo was dirty, bleeding from several cuts, and unconscious. Lunamon and the other digimon were missing, and for a moment Coronamon felt himself truly panic. But Sayo was still breathing, and her digivice hung securely from her neck alongside Koh’s.

Patamon pawed at the device until he managed to pull up the status screen. Three digi-eggs icons danced on the screen. Coronamon sighed in relief. It wasn’t ideal, but eggs meant that they would be fine.

Agumon cleared her throat, catching his attention. “So… How are we going to carry Sayo out of here?”

Coronamon looked back across the crater-filled, decimated room, and thought about all the glitched out portals they had to cross through.

Coronamon swore.

~ ~ ~

Pain.

A lot of pain. Almost enough to drown in, but the feeling of victory and relief at it all being over was enough to help dull the edge of it.

Concern, also, made up a lot of the remaining mental awareness Sayo had left. Her digimon had been hurt badly enough to force them to degenerate all the way back into eggs. Her last conscious action had been downloading them into her digivice from under a pile of rocks. Not the most glamorous place for a victor to be, but Sayo was alive, so she wouldn’t complain.

She sort of remembered being carried. At first it was rough and somewhat uncomfortable, but then she had been placed in a warm, sturdy pair of arms, and the trip was much better then.

She definitely didn’t remember much of her hospital stay; A faint memory here and there, the chemical-clean smell of hospital sheets, the pinch (barely noticeable around the rest of her aching body) of an IV, and a hand warmly holding onto hers.

~ ~ ~

There wasn’t much fanfare when everything was said and done. Newton and Dorothy crashed her hospital room and staged an escape the moment Sayo was able to string together thoughts for more than a few minutes at a time. She still wasn’t able to move around much, but being bedridden in her own bed was much nicer. Chief Julia had stopped by to personally commend her on a job well done, and ChaosDukemon had even smiled at her, which was a pretty interesting sight since they guy wore a helmet.

Okay, she might have imagined that part. They gave her some _very_ powerful drugs to override the pain of over-extending her limits.

Official Tamer business outside of basic maintainence had been suspended until further notice, so Sayo spent her days physically recovering and, when they hatched, caring for her baby digimon.  It was a novel experience, since she had never seen Usagi in her baby form before. Her friends stopped in often to check up on her and fill her in on what was going on in both Cities. Rebuilding was underway in Sunshine, and since many of the Light Fang tamers were still recovering from the virus, Night Claw had stepped up and taken over many of the projects.

Though she waited, Koh was never among her visitors. His digivice was gone from her neck, which wasn’t all that surprising. He probably retrieved it while she was in recovery. 

Newton and Dorothy seemed to pick up on her mood, and occasionally (unsubtlety) reported on what Koh was doing. Evidently, he hadn’t left Chief Glare’s side since the recovery operations had begun. As one of the few Light Fang tamers that hadn’t been brainwashed, Koh was acting as an advisor of sorts on what had gone on during Light Fang’s hiatus. Newton insisted that Koh had asked after Sayo, but was just too busy to come visit in person.

Dorothy, in a sly tone that made Sayo hide her face in her pillow, reported that the gossip forums were full of rumors that Koh had been seen carrying an unconscious Sayo to the Night Claw medical ward. Some of the more other-worldly rumors claimed that she even had Koh’s digivice slung around her neck. 

Sayo deflected as best as she could. She couldn’t decide if Koh hadn’t told Dorothy and Newton about their new bond, or if Dorothy was just being herself and teasing her; Either way, she didn’t feel like fueling the gossip forums.

Koh’s absence did bother her. She knew what it was like to be busy, but even the infamously anti-social Sayo knew that it was weird to leave their situation unaddressed for so long. She considered sending something down the bond to get his attention, but dismissed the thought just as quickly. If he truly was busy, it would be a distraction he didn’t need. And if he was avoiding her on purpose…

Well. She had just taken out a threat to the entire digital world. She could handle rejection maturely. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Trivia:
> 
> Me: Doesn’t want to write serious action scenes.  
> Also Me: Physically can’t skip over such an important plot moment and, despite being reluctant, actually has some fun writing an action scene.
> 
> The Passing of the Digivice is such a cool moment, but it always felt understated in the game. This is my version of that scene, plus a little extra.
> 
> By the way, I know I wrote it like it was a big deal, but this fic won’t really explore the consequences of Koh lending Sayo his digivice. It does mean I have a potential sequel on my hands. I don’t intend to write it at this time, but who knows what the future may hold…


End file.
